Notes on an Unremarkable Life

Inklings of a Way Forward

2011-11-10T14:38:00.000-08:00

My beloved is amazing. It amazes me that she has volunteered to accompany me on my twisting turning waxing waning journey around power, sex, and relationships. "Volunteered" is maybe too strong a word. But she has very good-naturedly, and sometimes enthusiastically agreed to listen, explore, and poke about in something I can't seem to help but be interested in, but which (I think) strikes her as an emotional and intellectual oddity at best and an emotional disfunction at worst.

After an insanely busy hiatus, in which only her sense of self-discipline has kept us on track, suddenly I come up for air and wonder how I want to go forward with this. (I'll ignore for a minute all the ironies of her self-discipline, my relative lack of self-discipline, and our inability to find a way to apply her discipline to me, in either metaphorical or physical form.) For go forward I must. The stream never stops. Sometimes it runs shallow, and sometimes it runs deep, but it always runs.

One of the things that frustrated me the most was that I am unable to consistently come up with service things to do for my beloved. This has led me to question my whole identity as a "service submissive." The idea of coming up with one thing each day to do that would be nice is very appealing, and I seem totally unable to do it.

One thing I realized I can do is to be submissive, rather than ask her to make me submissive. This is the way I lost my right to decide over my own orgasms over the years: I asked all the time and then finally we had the conversations where she agreed to decide. I think this model could apply to other things. The other day, I asked her if I could paint her nails - a service-submission thing that I also enjoy doing. It was very good and put us (me certainly, her I think as well) into a really good headspace.

I could do this with other things. I'm wearing my chastity device for the afternoon because I asked her if she'd hold the key "till I need it back." That doesn't do anything for her, but it does for me. Simiarly, I could/should/would like to ask to do at least one submissive or service thing every day. These are for me, not for my beloved. Her gift to me is accepting them. It's not that she makes me be as i want to be, but that she allows me to be as I am.

Overall, I think taking responsibility for what I want is helpful. It also might make her more comfortable insisting on things when my mood fluctuates because otherwise it's to inconsistent and annoying for her and thus in some sense help me be more consistently who I am, rather thank my relying on her making me be who I an, which is something she can't do anyway since in the end only we know who we really are. Isn't this a big theme in literature, with pygmalian at one end?

Tamara did a re-post and reply to a post she'd read on another blog. It's about acknowledging the reality that in many relationships (including hers with Rene, and the original poster's with her partner), that one partner is much more "in to this" than the other - in their words, that it's in one partner's soul, but not the the soul of the other. That sounds right to me.

To me, it means managing my expectations, and asking for what I want, and helping my beloved explore what things there are in this that may tickle her fancy, more or less.

And always being grateful that I have some with whom I can talk and explore.

A Blog Back From The Dead?

2011-10-23T14:40:00.000-07:00

Is this blog returning from the dead? I don't know.

Why has it been so long since I've posted? Because I've got two intense community commitments, intense job commitments, and it feels in some ways like our FLR has been hanging on by a thread.

The bigger question for me is, "What are we doing here." I've made several attempts at distinguishing between a service-oriented relationship, a submissive relationship, and sexual "bottom" relationship, none successful. Yet I have to try again, because on this short trip with one of our children, it's much of what I've been thinking about - yet another way that sexual being that isn't in tune with the rest of my life is intensely distracting, to my detriment.

Some of this is sexual frustration. It's been - I've lost count - three and a half weeks, maybe? No touching by me, a little by my beloved, but certainly no orgasm. One of my favorite parts of the blog was always the time-since counter. I remember early in the summer when we first had sex and I didn't update the counter. From there on, it seemed impossible to catch up. In once sense, it's been nice to get unhooked from the calendar. I've feared that my beloved was keeping track; for a while it seemed like she'd decided that every two weeks or so was "right." Once, I asked, because I felt that being frustrated was distracting me from the rest of my life. She didn't immediately accommodate me, for which I am grateful. I'd hate to feel like I could just ask and that would be that. I think I need to be able to ask, but I'm not even sure of that any more.

Now my orgasm happens when it pleases her, and that makes me very happy. Most of the time, orgasms are much much more intense that way. Sometimes they come and go so quickly that I hardly notice them. I feel physically satisfied, but the "frustrated" mind-set doesn't really change.

One experiment that is a little on-going in our relationship is the arrive of a CB-6000s. This has been a long-time fantasy of mine, and at some point I mentioned it to my beloved. I was among the early people to order a CB-2000 long ago. (I conclude this because our order was delayed because they were just moving from "hand crafted" to "manufactured.") My anatomy is best described as "high and tight," and the CB-2000 was not effective at all. The idea is that the testicles are "trapped" between two acrylic rings - hence the generic name for these devices: "Trapped ball devices." A very small number of trials indicated what with my anatomy, it was more like "crushed ball..." It's been languishing in a drawer for 8 years.

The "CB" folks have been busy and gone through several models, and there are others testing out related designs, including the "Bird Cage," a flexible silicone version of the same thing. The discussion board at ChastityForums.com is very metal-centric (there are trapped ball devices from Mature Metals), but are willing to condescend to plastic to the extent the CB-6000 and CB-6000s can be useful to figure out your sizing for the "real" devices. The silicone devices they dismiss out of hand. Although my beloved preferred the silicone as a concept and a look, ever the pragmatists, we decided to try the CB-6000s.

It's not clear that this thing is going to work on me. There are five ring sizes, and five post lengths, so that's 25 combinations. We've tried three or four, and either the ring is too small around the base of the balls, or the space is too big, allowing them to slip out. I have one or two ideas of additional combinations to try, but it's quite possible that it will be a fail. I've worn it overnight once, and out-and-about on a number of occasions, but most of the time the result is either too painful to continue or "the boys" slip out, which is painful in its own right. I might think about trying "the birdcage." But I wonder if the results would be different.

Now on to service, submission, and sexual-bottoming.

I don't know if I'm a service submissive. I read Axe talk about being a service submissive. I remember one remark he made about the satisfaction of bringing Sade a cup of tea on a quiet evening. I'm not sure whether or not I share that satisfaction. I think, for me, the satisfaction of doing that comes from the interaction that it implies with my beloved, and I can't figure out what I want that interaction to be: ignoring the service? taking the service for granted? acknowledging the service but at the same time making it clear that I have no choice? Much of that sounds like a lot of work for her.

The service submission things we have figured out need some kind of interaction from her: paying the bills is the biggest one, and I haven't been doing it. At the other extreme, making her coffee in the morning, even if I'm not having coffee, I love too. In the middle, I paint her toenails and shave her legs. I don't suggest these things nearly as often as I should. And when she tells me I need to do them, I do, but not, initially, with as much grace as I should. And I don't know how I'm "supposed to be" while I'm doing it - are we our "partners" selves - as we are partners in life - chatting about stuff? Am I the quite submissive studiously not disturbing the person he's serving? Should I be providing a book or magazine for her to read along with the personal service?

What visions do I have for this? What do I want? I don't know. I think we'd have to try two different extremes: In one, I ask for permission to give her this service, I make sure she is entertained while I do it - book, magazine, radio, movie, something - and I thank her for the privilege of serving. This "brackets" the experience, sets it apart from our "partner" relationship. In the other, we acknowledge that this inequality is part of of the "partner" relationship we have - that she can order me to provide these services for her whenever she wants, that it immediately becomes way more important anything else I might be thinking of doing, but it exists in the context of our whole relationship, so we interact about the rest of life while we're doing this.

Or we do both - bound the event with those rituals AND maintain the connection to the rest of our relationship that goes on at all times. THAT sounds like the most powerful idea to me.

It ties in to what happens when she tells me to rub her feet at night. I appreciate it a lot when she tells me to do this on the evenings when I'm tired and just want to sleep. Surrendering to her in this way is probably the most profound experience I have in this context. She's usually reading or dozing late at night. I rub her feet until she tells me I'm done. When she falls asleep, I feel like I've achieved what I really want, both psychologically and physically. Physically, it's clearly comfortable enough that it feels good. Psychologically, it means she's comfortable enough not to worry about how long I'll be there serving her; I'll be there until she happens to wake up and decide that she wants me to stop. I love that.

The part of service that I don't seem to be good enough at is seeking out things to do for her, and being attentive to her needs when service "play" is not the focus of what we're doing. Does that mean I'm not a service submissive? I think it might mean that.

Submissive. To me, that's letting my beloved take the lead and be "the decider." I'm not sure I want that. I don't know if she does or not. In some ways, I think I'm so desperate to have this dynamic in our relationship, that if she were to say, "When I want your opinion, I'll ask for it," I'd be incredibly turned on. But I'm pretty sure that's not her. We've always functioned as partners.

Sexual bottom? Totally. Sex when she wants it, how she wants it, and involving me in any way she wants to involve me. That ties with service submission in some ways, because sex becomes service to her. My frustration becomes a reminder to me of my service to her and her control over our sex life. And that all is very very satisfying.

That's why "teasing" isn't really teasing - it's a reminder that this is what sex is. And that is very satisfying too.

I thought I'd have more to say about submission, and about sex, but at this moment, I don't. I also thought I'd be writing about objectification, and how that's a bad thing, and how it manifests in a lot of contexts. Also about how wearing the CB-6000s feels - the idea that I would experience discomfort because of our sexual roles, and that I would feel okay about that trade-off, just as women who wear high heels or tight pants make that trade-off. It's not like either of those things aren't uncomfortable. But the discomfort says something about who I am (and, if my conjecture is right, who those women are), and that is a satisfying thing: that I am a sexual being, that my sex has power - in my case, power that my beloved want's to control, in the case of high-heels, power to attract men, but that that attraction will be controlled because of the social mores in our culture. It's why my favorite line in "Miss Congeniality" is when Sandra Bullock's geeky FBI agent has been transformed into a self-possessed, self-confident beauty queen, and she taunts her fellow agent with a little ditty, "You want to hold me, you want to kiss me, you want to [unintelligible - love? fuck? I'm sure that's intentional] me." And she knows he can't and won't because of their professional relationship.

But all that for another day.

Learning from Other Blogs

2011-04-01T14:53:00.000-07:00

Some notes on a couple of blog posts.

Ms. Marie has taken a certain amount of heat (irony intended) for making her "sissy" wade around in an icy stream in order to get rights to indulge in his fishing passion. I've always been amazed at how vehement posters can be in reply to some posts. Jeez, if you don't agree with them, go rant on your own blog. The chances that someone is going to read your comment, and then have a blinding flash of insight, and say "Oh my God, I shouldn't have done that," those chances are slim-to-none. Even more so when you're "anonymous." (Ms. Marie addressed this issue in her post It's Come to This. I used to ignore those comments, but this one got me to thinking about "Why?"

Everything we do involves risk - driving in cars, skiing, hiking, walking down urban streets, taking the subway, you name it. But we accept those risks because we get some return from them; they're worth it. But if someone elses activity that you're reading about totally is not worth it to you, but the risks are obvious, then the trade off doesn't make any sense. Hence the vehement comments. But "tubeviewerFm81" (no public profile) put it pretty well,, and at much greater length, and in detail that I mostly agree with. It's when commenters (including tubeviewFm81 in this case) find it necessary to judge ("Oh my, that was too far... but the rest of the blog is hot!"), that's when I find myself puzzled.

Oddly, despite calling him "Sissy," I don't find much "Sissy" about Ms. Marie's husband. Forced cross-dressing, yes. Humiliation, maybe. Being used for her pleasure, certainly. But on Forever Hers, "Mistress" (who seems to write most/all of the posts, despite the "about" over on the right side), seems to delight in making her husband, who she refers to as "dee," act like someone's vision of a drag queen. There's similar forced feminization, but humiliation as well (which, for me, can be kind of a turn-on some times, depending on how it's done).

But her most recent post, It's a Girl!! was the first kinky post I've read in a a long long time that went too far for me. Notice that I'm not over there posting, "Oh my God, how could you do that to him?" in the comments. But the idea of infantilizing him when (from the way she writes it), it's clearly not his thing, was horrifying to me. My strong reaction made me wonder two things: 1) Why? and 2) is this how my beloved felt or feels about what I need?

Why was that so horrifying to me? I still don't have a complete answer, other than that my mind and self-possession and maturity have always been deep-down fundamental to my self-image and my concept of who I am. It would be stripping away from me at the deepest level, that which I value about myself. Yet "dee" went along. Was he as horrified as I? Should I admire his submission? Should I admire "Mistress" for being willing to strip "dee" back to the very beginning ("square one") and recreate him in the image that she desires? Intellectually, it makes sense. But emotionally, that would a totally hard limit for me. If it were that, or walk out of the relationship, I'm pretty sure I'd walk.

More interestingly to me, is this how my beloved felt about my kink? I know that intellectually she can wrap her brain around it. But emotionally was it as horrifying for her as this post was for me? Even if she didn't have such a strong reaction, I think I have a better idea of how she feels. It's so easy, when you're in to kink, to look at someone else's kink and go "Well, that's not me, but I can see how that could be hot." That I can *not* do that about someone's kink, surprises me. And makes me understand, I guess, how my Beloved, with all the love and best will in the world, can *not* do that about my kink.

Which, of course, makes it all the more amazing and admirable and gratitude-inducing that she's chosen to come on this voyage with me. I don't know who's leading right now. I certainly need this much more than her. And I' still trying to figure out how to provide enough value to her that she won't want to stop. But as long as she's willing to continue, I'll be incredibly grateful and awed by her "Good, Giving, and Game" (to quote Dan Savage).

Lines, Context, and Communication

2011-03-26T13:44:00.000-07:00

Lilly made a comment when I posted about "Writing lines", asking "How do you feel when you are writing lines?" I seem to be rather backed up with things to say here, so rather than answer in the comment, this turned in to a post.

To start with the direct answer, if I had to sum up how I feel while writing lines, it's "very very content." It's best when I'm writing lines while something else interesting is going on - people watching a movie or something. Meanwhile I'm upstairs writing. Or my beloved is relaxing reading and I'm writing.

It's a feeling like I'm just where I'm supposed to be, doing what my beloved has set me to do, with a set of obligations and priorities and role that is different from the people watching the movie or from my beloved.

I've been thinking a lot and writing a little about "context" - what it is that makes one feel like something different is going on in what might be a very mundane situation - men who want their wives to dress them in maid's outfits or keep them naked while they clean the house. How is that different from just cleaning the house? It's how the guy feels because he is cross-dressed or naked.

I think there is an element of this same thing here. I am doing something I would not otherwise have done, that has no intrinsic value to me, because my beloved wants me to do it.

It's the difference between submission and service. Service is practical. Certainly, there is an element of submission in it - doing what she wants when she wants it, rather than when I want to do it. And the more it serves her the more submission is in it. So Service is doing the dishes and taking out the trash and doing the finances. All things that need to be done in our house, and if I don't do them, she will. But they are really service for "Us" (our household) rather than for her.

On those occasions when I get to do something for her, it's much more satisfying. For example, the other night she was at a meeting and realized that she'd forgotten her knitting. When I got her text, I didn't hesitate and stopped what I was doing to deliver that to her. That was service for her, and it was wonderful.

Writing lines is the same only more so: while bringing her knitting has practical value to her of entertaining her during her meeting, my writing lines has no practical value other than to focus me on how I should improve for her, and reenforce to me that her desires, how ever non-sensical they may seem to me, are more important than mine - an opportunity to submit. What's not to like.

I'm describing this all from the point of view of "before" - before my beloved pointed out that she'd much rather have me doing something practical than writing lines. So my conjecture that the "writing lines" task meant that she wanted me concentrated on how to improve and how to please and how serve. When in fact it was some kind of compromise on consequences for my failing in my commitments.

And that's why shared context is important: doing the dishes means getting the housework done. Doing the dishes naked, or doing the dishes after a little "tease" that says "I'm going to sit and relax while you do the dishes" means "You are doing the dishes because you serve me." Doing the dishes in a mundane context means doing the dishes. And doing the dishes, after the context of the relationship is firmly established, even if there is no outside indication of the context (no "naked", no "tease"), is submission, because the submission suffuses the relationship, once both people really belive that it is the context of the relationship.

It's related to the Zen aphorism: "What do you do before enlightment: chop wood, carry water. What do you do after enlightenment: chop wood, carry water."

If you're not an asshole, what do you do before you're in an FLR: like the good relationship advice says, give 110%. What do you do after you're in an FLR: give 110%. Only it feels different.

Which leads me to believe that those external markers, whatever they are for the couple, that exstablish the context, are really important as the relationship is changing. After the relationship has changed, they're less important.

So doing the finances nude with a butt-plug means that I'm definitely doing them from a point of view of submission and service. But once that's established, the nudity and butt-plug aren't necessary. What is necessary is that both people accept that the context of the relationship is different, and that both people feel certain, comfortable, that their partner feels that the context is different. In the line-writing case for us, I felt the context was one thing, and my beloved felt that it was another.

For a submissive male like me, with a beloved wife who's figuring out how she wants to relate to leading our relationship, there is always the fear that, once the external markers of the submission are removed (the nudity and the butt-plug for example), my beloved is breathing a huge sigh of relief, thinking "Thank goodness that's over..." Because the external behavior is the same (chop wood, carry water, do dishes, do finances).

That's why communication is important in our relationship.

My brief career line writing, and observations on gender roles.

2011-03-15T20:30:00.001-07:00

Once again I was musing on the metaphor of preparing a lovely barbecue for a vegetarian. The short version is that I was, as you may have gathered from my previous post, all enamored of writing lines. By not fulfilling my commitment to keep our financial records in order, I ended up with the writing assignment I listed in my previous post. As B?, the expert, pointed out, that was a significantly large assignment, larger than I had anticipated.

The idea emerged from the fact that in our lives, time is the most valuable thing that we have. I took that to the conclusion that by forfeiting my time as a consequence for not fulfilling my obligations, I would establish a big incentive to stay current on them. So when my beloved was seriously annoyed by encountering some unupdated records, I thought I needed a consequence of similar magnitude.

So I was all happy with the thought that every waking moment not otherwise commited was going to be spent writing lines. I was content. Why? I don't know, but I must speculate a little. I was losing the ability to do what I wanted, because I had created a situation that displeased my beloved. I was incurring inconvenience because she had become upset. In essence, all the time I spent writing (2.5 hours more or less) was time I spent expressing my desire to please her. All of the things I gave up doing (watching movies, reading, web surfing, doing e-mail) were things I couldn't do because I hadn't fulfilled my commitment. It was a sacrifice and a form of communication, I felt, with my beloved.

She, perhaps not surprisingly, took this to a completely different conclusion. "All that time you're spending writing lines? You could be spending it doing what I really want done: getting the financial records in order." It's really hard to argue with logic like that, since it's so self-evidently true.

(In my own defense, I wasn't completely oblivious to this fact. Another part of the consequence for the state of the financial records was my obligation to work on them for a half and hour each and every day without fail until release from that obligation by her. But the fact remains that all the time I spent writing I could have spent working on the records.)

So she's given me what seems to me to be a more-or-less symbolic additional number of lines to do, while taking lines off of the menu of consequences. Perhaps they'll reemerge as a reward, I don't know.

To the vegetarian metaphor, if knowing that I am being denied something that I'd like to be doing (reading, hanging out, etc) does not give my beloved any frisson, I got to contemplating what value this whole dynamic might have for her. Frankly, the only non-contrived one I can see so far is the sex, which I think has improved dramatically for her. Sex is all about her pleasure now, and my desire for her. As a result, she has it when she wants, which can be three days in a row, and then not for two weeks. But there's no pressure.

That got me to thinking that my most effective course of action was to become as sexually desirable and stimulating for her as possible. Which is, of course, a complete reversal of our societal sexual roles. Given who we are, this is perhaps not surprising. For most of my adolescence, I harbored strong thoughts of being transgendered, and this was 40 years ago, when the concept was quite exotic. Christine Jorgenson and Jane Morris were my hero(ine)s. My beloved, on the other hand, was one of the first women to graduate from her university with a technical degree. So we've been wandering around those sex role lines for a long time.

I did ask her if the idea of sexual allure or suggestiveness, by behavior, dress, etc had any attraction for her, and she didn't dismiss the idea out of hand. Given that women and men get aroused by different things, I'm thinking that the kinds of displays women to do attract men are not going to be the ticket. Even so, based on her attraction to my anatomy, I was wondering if sexier underwear was in order. Perhaps. Or perhaps this is just another misguided idea on my part. But a cheap one to test out.

So the evolution continues, sometimes at a dizzying pace.

Update, and perhaps return to blogging

2011-03-13T18:22:00.001-07:00

If you notice the pattern of posting on the blog, you'll realize that winter seems to be a difficult time for me to post. My desire for an FLR, and for sex generally, seems to wane and return with the sunlight. It wouldn't stun me if it were something like seasonal affective disorder, but I've never investigate. I self-medicate with St. John's Wort and that seems to help. But mostly I wait for spring.

This can make growing an FLR pretty difficult, especially when the impetus comes from me, and then suddenly goes away as it does in the winter. This winter, though, my beloved has given me the wonderful gift of being steady when I can't, and has maintained the basic structure of our FLR, even when I would have let it go (only to know that the desire would return again, as it has).

Every night, we check in before bed time. Often, the only thing I've done for her that day is to make her coffee. I've missed a few of my nightly e-mail performance reports, but only a few. But many of them have been very brief, when it's felt like not much had happened that day.

Occasionally, I've missed on my responsibilities doing something around the house. Back in the late fall, we settled on writing lines as a method of reinforcing my awareness of what I need to be doing. I find it very effective.

Recently I discovered the Line Writing blog, which has given me a whole new perspective on lines. And for failing at one of my household tasks, I now have a dauntingly large number of lines to write:

"Keeping faith with my beloved is important. If I am unsure whether I am fulfilling my commitments, I will ask for guidance." 500 times by Thursday evening. In a new journal she gave me for the purpose. It's daunting, but satisfying. Which is why this won't be a long post - I have lines to do.

Also, from some blog or other I discovered the idea of standing against a wall holding a coin with my nose. To which I added repeating a phrase related to the failure that earned me the consequence.

I know these possibly sound outlandish, but in both cases, the intent is to get me to focus on what needs to be done, and what I need to be mindful of. Because, although I'm very enthusiastic about FLR, I'm often not very steady or diligent about it. These things help that.

It also helps me to know that my beloved cares whether I'm diligent or not, and her consequences enforce this - they help me know what's important to her. The down-side is that she is very deliberate and conscientious, which means that coming up with a consequence for something takes her more thought and time than she'd like to put in to the project.

We've addressed this by coming up with "Make a consequence" - something she can say when she notices a failure, or "MAC" if we're in public (which hasn't happened yet). I then submit the consequence for her approval in my nightly reports.

I've also read the "The Marketplace" - first book in the series by Laura Antoniou. I'm thrilled that my beloved is reading it as well.

Thanks to all those bloggers who blog more steadily than I do. You're a lifeline.

Jamie

What Every Good Service Submissive Should be Thinking About All The Time

2010-12-09T15:54:00.000-08:00

I found it thought-provoking. For as long as The New Yorker keeps it posted:

Love, Serve, Obey

2010-11-28T17:56:00.000-08:00

Love, Serve, Obey

That's been my manta with my beloved since we started our FLR some months ago. This morning, lying with my head in the crook of her arm, I realized a bit more about what is happening with that mantra.

I love her all the time.

When I serve her, I get to say "I love you" with my actions. A day when I don't get to serve her is NOT a good day. Though that happens, it doesn't happen very often. That's why it's important for me to know that she knows that I'm serving her. What's the point of saying "I love you" if your beloved can't hear it? (Okay, it's not completely pointless but I hope you get the idea.)

That's related to the point of Lady Grey's post on Please, Thank You, and Denial . For me, there are two big caveats in referring to this post: 1) The relationship that kicked off Lady Grey's thinking is very different from ours, and 2) Lady Grey's relationship is very different from ours. Nevertheless, I get a thrill when she says:

When I'm faced with [a gift from my submissive], I simply say "that's very nice" or something of that sort, which acknowledges the gift without having to say thank you. I'm not thankful that he's brought me a gift any more than I'm thankful that he's following my orders. It's expected. Following orders is expected. Being given gifts is expected. There's a constant expectation and assumption of service in a D/s situation ... and the only "please" or "thank you" that will be heard is when it's coming out of my sub's mouth.

I have commented before that my beloved is a hyper-considerate person. "Please" and "Thank you" are in her nature. And while I wouldn't try to change that, I felt that it was important to acknowledge where a service being performed by a submissive is different from a gift being given in a symmetrical relationship (for lack of a better term - our relationship is asymmetrical, which isn't to say un-equal, but which is probably worth its own post). Put another way, I do things for my beloved not ONLY to make her happy, but to tell her that I love her. So for us, finding a way to distinguish that might be very useful.

Obedience is something I get to do less often, which makes it more fun and more valuable. That having been said, I'd like to do it more (unlike some other pleasurable activities which I could mention...). Obedience is my way of answering her implied question: "Do you love me?" The harder obedience is, the more, to me, it says, "Yes, I love you." That's the value of her making tasks harder, or making them gratuitously hard. She sends me little "I love you"s by text or IM on some days - little silly things to do like not sitting down for a period of time or not eating something, or eating something I don't like. That way she says to me, "I want you to be thinking about me" and "You love me enough to do this, right?" I am very grateful for those, and I am grateful for the difficulty they present.

Even my nightly check-ins with her by e-mail have that value. They say, "Do you care enough about this relationship dynamic to do the inconvenient thing and e-mail me every night?" Fortunately, the answer is (almost) always "Yes." The consequence for not doing so, is the (harder) reminder, that I said it was, and forces me to contemplate the reason why it didn't happen.

How it’s going, what’s working, and what’s not

2010-11-22T18:39:00.001-08:00

My beloved “suggested” that I write a post on “how it’s going, what’s working, and what’s not.” So here I am.

How’s it going? At the most basic level, it’s going well because I really feel like I can be all of myself with her. So in that sense, after 40 years of hiding who I am, I don’t have to do that with the person who’s most important to me. That’s pretty darn good, and it’s important to keep that perspective as I run down the rest of this post.

We had two dear friends visiting this weekend, friends who have been through at least one iteration of “going public” with my need to be submissive, an iteration that A) didn’t go anywhere, B) wasn’t very stable in my dynamic with my beloved, and C) didn’t lead us to a life style that worked. But that was a long time ago, and arguably a necessary stepping stone to get to where we are today. All that notwithstanding, it felt very awkward to me not to be able to share with these friends the most important thing going on in my life.

So why not share it? One practical reason is that my beloved was away for the week before our friends arrived, so she and I didn’t have any time to talk about it. But in another sense, it felt like too much information. As far as I know, only one person who knows who I am reads this blog (other than my beloved). And I don’t think that person actually follows it, especially given its sporadic nature of the recent past. And with the agreement and the counters, it feels a little like “too much information” to share with friends. I suppose we could have shared the reality with them without sharing the blog, but as I said, we didn’t have an opportunity to talk about it.

But perhaps more importantly, my relationship with my beloved now seems to be more about “how we are with each other” than “what we do.” I think perhaps it’s a little more “how” and less “what” than I might prefer, but in the end we’re looking for a balance that “tells” me (emotionally) what I need to hear, but is fun and satisfying for my beloved. So if that’s got more “how” and less “what” than I might prefer, maybe that’s OK.

What is the most important thing to me about the “Female Led” aspect of our relationship? (So called for lack of a better term, but I think it’s not a bad term in and of itself.) It’s her knowing that I’m happy doing her will because it’s her will. And my knowing that she knows this. Not to wander into the hall of mirrors here, but it’s the back-and-forth knowledge and communication that’s important to me. Doing something hard is, well, hard. Doing something hard but knowing that my beloved knows I’m doing something hard is very satisfying. I haven’t figured out a way of asking for that feedback and I don’t think we’ve naturally come up with one yet, so that’s something to work on.

I think it’s involved in the idea I have (never successfully implemented yet) of disparity play and the talk and acknowledgement of that play. And it’s part of the same dynamic as orgasm control by my beloved – orgasm control being a particularly potent form of disparity play: “I’m getting pleasure and you’re not because we agreed that that’s how it would be.”

So one aspect of what’s not working for me would be my beloved being annoyed at my not coming upstairs because I’m doing my evening chores (writing daily reports, managing cash in her wallet, finding her cell phone, etc). Believe me, at that point, it’s not because I don’t want to come upstairs. But if I’ve left them to the end of the evening and they have to be done….

Perhaps I need an established consequence for each of the chores left undone, so that she could just say, “Come upstairs,” and it’s my misfortune that I didn’t get things done. Perhaps she would be comfortable saying “Are all your chores done?”, that being a command to get them done immediately.

Getting back to the idea of talk and acknowledgment of disparity play, which is kind of like teasing (in a good way), I have this fantasy (not completely articulated) about a dialog we would have where I need to admit and acknowledge the privileges I’ve given up, in a conversation with her. There’s something about the power of the spoken word that this invokes: Just waiting to come to bed is less powerful than, “Do you want to come to bed?” “Yes” “You will when I invite you to.” The bratty sub answers that question, “No” and then spends an unpleasant night not in bed or cold on the floor without a covering.

In summary, what’s hard is when we’re not talking about what we’re doing. Talking about what we’re doing is, to me, almost as important as doing it because it assures me that this isn’t all in my head. I can pretend my beloved wants me to do something and then do it, but what’s the point of that? I’d rather do one tenth the “stuff” because she wants me to than ten times as much because she’s like “Yeah, I guess you could do that.” But if I do one tenth without communication, then that’s almost no different than doing the ten-times-as-much without communication, and less fun.

Now that there’s a counter on the site, I can remember how long it’s been since I had an orgasm. Being required to know that number and report it on demand would be another verbal form of disparity play: I need to know, she doesn’t.

I don’t know if this is really a summary of what’s working and what’s not, but it’s what came to mind. Often when writing prior posts I’d get all hot-and-bothered, and I was waiting for that to happen when writing this one. But I think that dynamic has changed since we’ve started doing stuff, rather than my just fantasizing about stuff. Does that mean the energy has gone out of the blog? I think not, but it has changed a bit.

Our Arrangement

2010-09-14T18:54:00.000-07:00

It's taken much longer than I expected to put up the essence of our arrangement. Partly that's due to the fact that I wanted to think about it and give some context to the things we do and decisions we've made. On two occasions I was delayed because I made inappropriate decisions that resulted in writing a number of lines during the time that I intended to work on this.

In the course of editing, I realized that the arrangement we are working on has three parts - the context, the privileges and obligations we've taken on (or, in my case, privileges I've renounced), and the rituals we use to remind ourselves of what we're doing. The first two parts are posted here; rituals will have to wait for another evening.

Context
My beloved and I live in a “Female Led Relationship” because I need tangible manifestations of the love and connection that we share. My beloved has agreed to provide those manifestations in contexts that are either fun or useful to her or that carry great meaning for me. Those manifestations of love and connection take form as a privileges I have surrendered and obligations I have assumed. These allow my beloved to restore those privileges at her prerogative, often linked to my performance of the obligations I have taken on.

My beloved’s awareness of my behavior, which she demonstrates by restoring privileges or requiring me to perform some action, fulfills my need to feel cared about.

Since this arrangement came in to being through my need, I have an incentive to keep my beloved engaged and interested in the arrangement. I do so by constantly seeking ways to be of service, doing things for her which she finds pleasant, which she finds it convenient not to have to worry about, or which are tedious and she would otherwise have to do.

The particulars of the arrangement between me and my beloved are things that work for us - things that fit those three categories of service, privileges that feel meaningful, and activities that are fun.

The Particulars of Our Arrangement
The most important thing in my life, after the children’s well-being, my beloved’s well-being, and my own well-being, is this Female Led Relationship with my beloved.

I have renounced the following privileges:

I have no privacy in my thoughts. I have an obligation to volunteer to my beloved any thoughts regarding our arrangement. I have an obligation to answer all questions candidly and without reservation.
I have no right to make commitments for myself or the family. When decisions are necessary and my beloved is not available, I will, as much as possible, make commitments conditional upon her approval.
I have no right to disagree with a decision made by my beloved. I may contribute information to her decision by asking, ‘May I contribute some thoughts to this?’ This includes, but is not limited to situations where she is missing important information, or her decision would jeopardize my work or make my submission obvious to observers.
I have no right to stimulate my own penis, which my beloved regards as hers. I may ask her for permission to do so, at least 24 hours after any other sexual activity, and not more than once every 24 hours.
I have no right to orgasm unless invited to do so by my beloved. When stimulated, if I believe an orgasm is imminent, I will advise my beloved.
I have no right to sleep other than naked. When away from home, I may ask for the privilege of sleeping not-naked.
I have no right to sleep in my beloved’s bed. She may invite me to her bed when she chooses. When we are apart, I may text her with a request to get in to bed when I am ready to go to sleep. Absent a response, I may get in to bed an hour later. Unless invited into bed, I may only fall asleep on the floor beside my beloved’s side of the bed.
I have no right to post to the blog. I may prepare drafts which my beloved will approve, edit, disapprove, or send back for editing.
I have no right to read, write, view, or listen to submission-related material while at work.
I have no right to spend any money on submission-related material (on-line or other) without asking my beloved.

I have assumed the following obligations:

Keep track of my failure to perform any of my obligations, as soon as I notice them, or as soon as I am notified of them by my beloved.
Report to my beloved once a day, by e-mail, reporting short-comings in my performance, listing consequences in force for previous short-comings, detailing activities I liked during the day, and providing other observations on the FLR.
Review once a day with my beloved, my performance during the day.
Be able to list at any time the consequences in force for prior short-comings in performance. Failure to be able to so do results in the short-coming in performance remaining unresolved.
Immediately obey any request made when my beloved begins a sentence with “I want,” “I need,” or “You will,” or anything in the tone of a command.
Make my beloved a double latte every workday morning when we are both at home, and other mornings on request.
Keep gas in cars at all times.
Keep cash in my beloved’s wallet at all times.
Plug in my beloved’s cell phone every night.
Be responsible for some personal-care items for my beloved.

My beloved has agreed to do the following things for me:

Honestly tell me how she feels about our arrangement.
Impose a consequences for obligations I did not fulfill, based on the daily report. She will tell me what consequence is a result of what unfulfilled obligation, and will try to choose consequences that feel connected to the failure.
Impose consequences at her whim, and tell me that’s why she chose them.
Text me when I fail to do something, or she is displeased about something.
Give me feedback about how my service is working for her during the daily report.
From time to time, ask me what consequences are in force, and what they’re for.
Decide when and how we have sex. Tell me how she feels after each time we have sex of any kind. (If she forgets, I may ask.)
Love me for who I really am.

2010-08-31T18:00:00.000-07:00

My beloved wrote, "The idea is for our FLR to be the most important thing in his life now, and him to get validation from me." Those words have been ringing in my brain since she wrote them, and I'm a little at a loss as to how to proceed with the blog, and what to say.

My beloved is out of town, so it's a quiet night in the Unremarkable household. I thought I'd put up some miscellaneous notes.

She has been exploring sex in different ways, mostly ways that I can provide her with more pleasure. Though it started off (years ago) as a "submissive mindset" trope, the notion that her pleasure really is my pleasure has become true. The way our arrangement works now (and I really will post the whole thing some time, after the editor in me gets through with it), I only get physical sexual stimulation from her, or with her permission.

Looking back at the blog (one of the reasons to have it), I realize that since September of 2006 I haven't had an orgasm without her permission. For most of this period, she would say "Yes" if I asked her, but finding the moment was always something of a challenge, so the loss of control over my own physical orgasm was rather real.

We've changed that scheme a bit recently. I am not to touch my penis for pleasure without her permission. And while I used to be able to ask for permission to orgasm, now, we have a prescribed set of outcomes, none of which include pleasurable orgasm for me - either stimulation without orgasm, or ruined orgasms (ejaculation with no immediate stimulation - "Sarah" described it well in Male Chastity Punishment That Really Works).

Though many don't like dice games, I originally made up a little game of chance which my beloved changed in to a dice game. I think she found it convenient to see all the possible outcomes in one place, and easy to adjust the probabilities of the outcomes with only six possibilities per roll. The first time she saw me roll "Stimulate yourself without using your hands for 5 minutes, and then ruin your orgasm," I think she was surprised. I was surprised too. It was very effective, leaving me physically discharged but very submissive.

The "disparity play" aspect of her watching me thrash around was also very hot.

Since then, all of my sexual pleasure comes from her. Either she chooses to stimulate me with her hand (and then stop), or we're having intercourse and she wants me to orgasm because it feels good to her. Maybe some day she'll give me a hand-job, who knows? I know I enjoy the tease.

I find that my physical response to all this stimulation-without-sex is odd: rather than getting incredibly horny physically, I find it harder to get a hard-on. I find that the stimulation is mainly in my head, and if my penis knows it's not going to get off (and how can it "know" anything?) it doesn't seem to bother with the hydraulics of it all. But if my brain is stimulated by submission or disparity play (a concept I thank Subservient Husband for), or service, then the hard-on comes unbidden.

I say this all because we've decided to add a time-since-last-orgasm counter to the blog. Not because we're obsessed by the number. Just the opposite. One of the chastity-related bloggers I read (I forget which one) pointed out that he wasn't interested in how long it had been since his last orgasm, that it was more about the submission than the lack of spurting. I agree. So much so that we figured we'd forget if we didn't "write it down" somewhere, and a blog counter seemed like the place.

Earlier in our relationship, I've tried keeping logs in my smartphone about what kind of orgasm and when, and how many of hers for each of mine, and all that. No luck. I don't seem to care enough. So the counter may disappear at any time if we figure that we don't care or forgot to update it some long time ago. But for now, here it is.

Blogging vs. Actually Living It

2010-08-29T19:53:00.000-07:00

Jamie's beloved here. I'm glad that Jamie has learned so much about what he wants and needs from all of you out there in cyberspace. And I'm glad he's found community and validation for who he is. On the other hand, I'm not sorry if he has less tine to blog now. The idea is for our FLR to be the most important thing in his life now, and him to get validation from me. That sounds egotistical, but that's where we're going, which necessarily puts blogging and reading blogs lower on Jamie's priorities.

We're planning to continue to post our thoughts on this blog. Jamie is going to start another blog for his daily performance reports, so we have a record of them. We'll also post our Arrangement -- the agreement about what we do each other. It's a work in progress, but we can share what we've come up with so far, along with the list of consequences that Jamie has suggested (rewards and punishments) that I impose based on how well he lives up to his part of the agreement.

I hope you find them useful!

The Morning After

2010-08-29T18:35:00.001-07:00

I'm fairly sure I've mentioned that many years ago (probably 20), when my beloved and I were making a very early experiment in an FLR (and I'm not sure the term had been invented at the time), she asked, "So how would today have been different if we had been doing this stuff?"

At the time, and for many years after, I had no answer. I think I'm beginning to develop one.

For the past two-and-a-half weeks, my beloved and I have been exploring a different understanding of our relationship. There's been much more sex involved than I had anticipated (mostly for her, some for me), a lot of talking, and a lot of experimentation in terms of behaviors she wants from me. In short, it's been just about top-of-mind for me, and I'm guessing only slightly less for her.

For us, that couldn't last. Not for bad reasons, but because we both have lives and interests and activities. So ironically, when things were all in flux, with kid summer schedules, separate vacations, etc, it was easier for this to be the most prominent thing between us.

Today we're off doing all sorts of different things and FLR needs to become part of our existing lives, not replace them. I think we're succeeding at that, slowly, since it's early days.

If you followed us around for a day, the most salient thing you'd see would be our daily check-in, which right now seems to be happening right before bed, but is designed to happen any time in the evening. And our going-to-bed ritual, based on the fact that the bed has become hers, to which I am only allowed by invitation.

We're testing out a mantra for me to repeat when entering and leaving the house. I'll report to her on that on Sunday evening and she'll decide where she wants to go with it.

And I'm responsible for some personal care items for her - mostly culled from the now-defunct Ms. Rika web site - massages, cell phone maintenance, cars, wallet, etc.

What's much more important, however, is what's different between my beloved and myself:

1) I'm 100% here. Expanding on what I wrote a few posts ago, I have no privacy in my thoughts. She can (and has, once or twice, to my great delight) ask at any time what I'm thinking and get and uncensored answer. And I will ask questions and volunteer reactions and emotions, so that she knows that there's nothing going on in my head that she isn't party to.

2) My beloved is exploring this FLR or power-relationship or whatever-it-is with me. She is looking for information from me, and on-line. She is looking for what works for her in all this.

3) Because we're unequivocally in this together, she can say, "That's too much" or "I don't want to go there" and I don't take it as a rebuke; it's more communication and expectation setting. If there's something in "there" that's really important to me, it's my responsibility to unpack it and find the essence, so we can talk about it.

There's more to this, but I don't think I'm going to get it today, and would rather have this posted than wait for it to be perfect.

I have two great fears, and our communication helps keep them under control. One is that I'm doing this "alone" - that is, it's all in my head and she's just going "unhuh" enough for me to maintain the fantasy in my own head. Fortunately, I have to report to her every day on how the day is going, and once I do that, it's impossible for me to get deluded that way. Rather, I keep being stunned by how much she's doing for me.

The other is that she's engaged in this, but she's laughing at my silliness all the way along. Again, I got to ask her that directly this morning, and she cleared me up: She's amused by the power disparity, when I have to do things and she doesn't. I hadn't realized that she was noticing, and I'm tickled pink that she is, and that she finds it amusing.

There are two places I hope we get to. One, I've mentioned to my beloved, and she sees it as plausible: That she gets to the point where this style of relationship works well enough for her that she would be reluctant to "go back." The other I haven't had a chance to mention yet: that at some point during our daily review, she brings up something I should have done that I wasn't aware of. In other words, that she's expecting more of me than I realized. Not that I fell down on the expectations I knew about, but that she expects more.

Other bloggers have noted (and disappeared after noting) that once one really starts in an FLR, there's not so much time left over for blogging. That's my experience. There have been several occasions when I had something I wanted to blog, or some subject that I wanted to cover, but by the time I get a moment to do it, things have moved on. I'll attempt not to disappear, but will be interested to see how much blogging I do.

Learning by doing

2010-08-23T14:38:00.000-07:00

Insights come in little drips. Repeatedly.

My beloved and I have a ritual in the evenings that helps us structure our conversation about my submission and her work with me on finding a place from which she can celebrate who I am.

She has been generous the past week or so with little commands - I suspect we'll want to come up with a cute name for them. But they're huge for me. I was at a concert and she was away when she texted me to "put one foot in front of the other for two minutes." I did, and marveled at how it made me feel: connected to her, content, in short, "loved." Why?

I'm currently going on the theory that people hear different things in different ways. I am perfectly able to hear "I love you" from my beloved, and internalize it in an intellectual way. But there are aspects of my life where I learn much more kinesthetically, and I'm wondering if emotional learning is one of those aspects. If my beloved tells me to do something, then the muscle memory, and attention, the time, the feeling of doing it penetrates my emotions much more deeply. In short, doing the arbitrary, sometimes uncomfortable, sometimes inconvenient things she sets for me, allows me to emotionally hear "I love you" in a way that I can't otherwise.

What? And Why Now?

2010-08-19T04:32:00.000-07:00

My beloved pointed out that it is interesting that we've embarked on this adventure (for the third? time) at a moment when we both have new jobs. Not only is change in the air, but my job involves managing both a (small) staff and a lot of projects - the former, a first for me.

One of my biggest issues in my work career has been self-confidence (or lack thereof). Not with regard to my skills in my field of work, but with regard to myself. With staff, it comes out as having to remind myself that demands on my staff by others is a validation of the people I selected and of the work our group is doing.

I can't have that confidence without the acceptance of myself that comes with actually being who I am in the most important relationship in my life - my marriage. My beloved's acceptance of me, not just grudging, but engaged with who I am is key to that.

So what's different this time? Or the time before that? Or the time before that? I just searched for old posts regarding "Gardening," because I recall that the last time we tried this, I ended up rototilling new garden beds, which is not my idea of a good time. But, as I recall, it was right at the beginning of another attempt at this, so I was interested to see what I had been writing in the blog.

It was the throes of starting up, a moment of passion and new love, similar to where we are now. What I am passionately committed to is that we're not going to let go of this change in our relationship. Which doesn't mean it's always going to be at the passionate level it is now - not that I would complain, mind you . But experience tells me that life seldom works that way.

In one sense, this is working when it becomes unremarkable - it is what we do. Our going-to-bed ritual is not from a "vanilla" relationship. When it's just "what we do," I'll feel we will have established this in some way. When she sees something I'm doing as being hard, and insists anyway, or provides consequences anyway, I'll feel that this has come to be the expectation, rather than a "game" we're playing (even though I suspect there will always be game-like aspects to it).

The place where we're succeeded so far with this is orgasm control symbolized by the necklace. even when nothing was going on power-wise in our relationship, I would still ask her permission to masturbate. As I've commented before, the asking was really really important. I'm hoping we come up with other behaviors like that - keeping gas in the cars, money in her wallet, and her cell phone charged are three that I can imagine. What those lack, though, that asking for permission to masturbate has is the element of communication. And the communication is key. That's what says to me (as I feel I'm saying over and over again, but I think it's a measure of how important it is to me, that my thoughts keep coming back to it, as "all roads lead to Rome") "this isn't just in your head; we're doing this; I'm engaged with you on this." So more than the routines of gas and money and cell phones, it will be something where we communicate.

That's where this "Oh, I'll 'forget' to do gas" behavior that so many submissives engage in comes from. It's the plea, "Are we still in communication?; do you care?" And the dominant notices and punishes, then the submissive gets that communication feedback. That's very very powerful, and unless there's communication in some other way, that dynamic is not going away. The submissive isn't going to get to serve, over the long term, because that behavior is a pain in the ass for the dominant. The dominant isn't going to get whatever service might be convenient to her.

So if failure-to-perform isn't about a plea for communication, and punishment isn't the communication that the submissive craves, then punishment can work as "Fern" describes in the post linked over on the side-bar.

(And while I'm OK with the term "submissive," I'm not happy with "dominant" because that's not who my beloved is, but it'll have to do for now.)

The other thing that's different is my attitude towards all this, and that I lay to reading blogs by younger people who are so much more self-accepting than I am about this. And to listening to Masocast, where people who do this kind of thing actually talk about this in matter-of-fact ways. Emotionally, I think I've finally come to understand that I am not a bad, flawed, broken, incomplete, dirty, perverted person for wanting/needing this. And I am so fortunate that my beloved has agreed to come on this journey with me.

That transformation is so fraught: "You are not the person I married; you've been hiding from me for all these years; you've been living a lie and made me live it too; you're going to make me change my life and I like the life I have now." All these are reasonable reactions. (And though this wasn't as "out of the blue" for her as it is for many couples, I'm still grateful that she has chosen not to see it in any of those ways, and to explore with me.)

I'm struck with the parallels with 12-step groups. That's not a path I have a personal experience with - I only know it from popular culture, friends, and a little reading. But the acceptance of myself seems parallel. And so does the part about surrendering my thoughts to my beloved. If I understand 12-step, one usually has a "sponsor" to whom one can be open about temptations, failures (and successes, I guess). My beloved is doing that for me, and my thoughts and actions stand naked before her.

I'm really lucky she accepts me.

Which is why I feel like the luckiest guy around.

Sex as Proxy. And on Being Happy.

2010-08-18T14:18:00.001-07:00

"Ken and Emily Addison" publish a blog and web site and book called "Around Her Finger" that recommends female led relationships, mainly through orgasm control. Every month they answer some letters on their blog. I found this one particularly affecting and really identify with it.

"My desire for sex is a proxy for my desire to achieve an intimate connection with my wife. I also know that I can achieve a higher level intimate connection without sexual intercourse. If she affords me a dominant intimate encounter, a moment of connection between us where she exerts her authority through verbal cues and allows some form of intimacy to occur, then I have received something more satisfying than intercourse.“

From http://aroundherfinger.blogspot.com/2010/08/august-2010.html the second of the "letters from men"

Each time I go back and read that I go "yup, that's mostly what it's all about." (Though I know denial and control are also really important to me.)

I've been irrationally happy all day, and I'll lay that to serving my beloved last night even though she and I are apart. She left me a garden and kitchen task which I probably wouldn't have done otherwise. It took about two hours and while each and every moment of it wasn't fun, there was a quiet sense of contentment that has lasted over into today.

My beloved also gave me a lot of attention last night for which I am also very grateful - and which may have something to do with my happy state. First, while using the computer, she told me to type only with my right hand. Then she upped the ante and told me to get naked. Finally she ordered me upstairs and to masturbate without cumming, using a little leather cock ring we have. After which she gave me permission to go to bed - something I cannot do without permission.

We worked out how our arrangement would work when we're apart, and we tweak it as needed based on what works and on reality. But I feel much closer to her than I usually do when we're apart, and house chores are getting done, so what's not to like?

I made a note to myself that I wanted to write a blog post on "Am I a Service Submissive" and I still want to do that, but I realized last night that I want to concentrate on ways to serve my beloved. She's doing an awful lot of work on this. There are a couple of personal care items she likes. Beyond that, I'm going to have to think about what I can do, and be attentive to anything that seems to work for her.

Quick Update on Many Changes

2010-08-17T04:27:00.000-07:00

I've felt bad leaving a somewhat negative post at the top of the blog for so long.

But the quick update is that life is changing as my beloved takes control. I think we're in the process of discovering or building something that is going to work for us. I worry that all this is is "work" for my beloved, but I'm hoping either that's a misplaced worry, or we'll rearrange things so it's not true.

Right now, we're apart for a week, which makes it a little difficult to work this in to our "typical everyday life," since in every day life we're together.

I asked for permission to buy a month at House of Gord, and she allowed me to - a first for me! First time I've ever spent money on porn. Many thanks due to my beloved!

I try to stay out of her hair so she can have a good vacation with the family.

She left me a "honey do" list (which is more in the way of orders) for a few things that need to be done around the house. This helps me feel that I'm actually being useful for her. And every once in a while, she swoops in to my life with an order to do something, like "go to bed now" or "For the rest of the evening, kneel if you're using the computer." These help me feel connected to her and keep my sense of being controlled very alive.

We are very much a work in progress, and I suppose success is far from assured. But we're working together, and 35 years of experience tells me that when we do that, we get some place good.

Thank you, my beloved.

Not A Good Way to End the Day

2010-08-12T09:43:00.000-07:00

My beloved is very smart and no-nonsense. In my performance report yesterday I reported that I had spent some of my first hour at work reading submission-related material. This was the second time I had to admit to going outside the rule she has established, and her concern went beyond the confines of our arrangement. "Either," she said, "you're trying to be bratty or you have an addiction. I don't believe you're trying to be bratty, but if you have an addiction, it calls into question this whole arrangement."

I think she's willing to explore something very different from the normative relationship in our culture, but I don't think she's willing to enable an addictive behavior.

So which is it? Being totally honest, putting at risk the most hopeful thing that I feel had happened to my psyche in 20 years, I'll say that I don't know.

I'd like to say that for sure it's just bad work habits and a reaction to a stressful week at work. And I think that.s some of it. But I can't in good conscience say that there isn't an addictive component to it.

What to do about that is another question. If there was a kink-aware or kink-friendly therapist or marriage counselor around to go to for advice that would be just the ticket, but my year of seven therapists taught me that it's silly to assume that.

I'm hoping that the strong draw of material on-line will wane as we do stuff, and that until then self discipline combined with my beloved as a support resource I can call upon when that threatens to fail will get me through.

What was much more upsetting was the look of disappointment, almost betrayal in my beloved's eyes as we had this conversation. She's working incredibly hard to create something that works for both of us, and this threatens to say that I've lured her on to an impossible task under false pretenses.

I don't want this to be so and will do everything in my power to make it not be so, and to make this easier for her rather than harder.

Which is why I'm siting in the parking lot before work writing this on my phone.

And now, to work.

A Momentous Week

2010-08-10T12:14:00.000-07:00

After reading the blog and some long and heartfelt conversation, I had to leave on a two day trip. so just when we were in a place where things could have gotten interesting, there was a hiatus. And it turns out, it was a hiatus which my beloved put to good use.

From what we talked about the other night, she put together a draft "arrangement", about which we had a great deal of conversation including a scad of texts just after I wrote my last post. By the end of writing that post I had gotten to a state of surrender where I think it would have been ok with me for my beloved to decide to start the arrangement any time she chose. In the event, she chose when I arrived home from my trip at about midnight. We'd been texting and talking and sharing Google docs all evening so the only surprise was her decision to start right then. (Not that there haven't been surprises subsequently!)

I don't know what her thinking was but we have a very busy week with family commitments and my work commitments so she may have decided just to go for it.

We are talking a lot. This to me is the most important thing. We talked about what derailed us in the past and I think it was largely not talking due to my shame and my beloved's ambivalence. For my part, I'm working very hard at radical surrender as part of my practice of this. Specifically that is the surrender of my private thoughts. As much as I as I can manage it, I have no private thoughts, especially about our arrangement. Anything I can formulate coherently is available to my beloved and if it isn't horribly out of context at the time it comes up, I tell her.

Along with that goes honesty on outing myself when I try to slack off or look for loopholes, a thing which submissives seem to be prone to. If I can't fix it in the moment, my beloved gets an email or text about it later as part of my performance report for the day. As someone who hid much of his interior life, since it was based on kink that I was ashamed of, this is huge and radical and transformative.and while I expect my beloved to do the same regarding our arrangement (at least while it's in its formative stages), I don't necessarily expect reciprocity from her on the lack of privacy on her thoughts. It's part of the asymmetry in the relationship which I find very hot, like her being able to use the bed at will while I need too wait for an invitation or her ability to have sex at will while I need to ask permission.

I could go on for a long time and hope to, but lunch hour is over and I'm prohibited from taking time at work to post, so more later.

I do believe I'm the happiest man in the whole world.

Waiting is the Hardest Part

2010-08-08T17:16:00.000-07:00

This is the hardest part. I'm on a two day trip, in fact on my way home on the train. We've talked (well, mostly IM'ed and traded document revisions and e-mails) about what an arrangement might look like. So even our mundane interactions are colored, in my view, with the impendingness of the thing. As a result, I'm happier and more relaxed and engaged. But we haven't done anything different. So from my beloved's point of view, things are great - no uncomfortable changes on her part, happier Jamie.

On my part, I'm dying to start doing something different. But I don't want to press her; I want this to be her initiative, since it seems that she's willing to take it. But darn the waiting is hard. On the one hand, I've waited 40 years, what's another day or week or month. On the other hand, just from our conversations, I feel like I've tasted what it might be like to do what we can do. Or maybe I've just fantsized about it. Either way, the waiting is hard.

And I wonder if the waiting is part of the surrender. It certainly ups the ante for my beloved. Or maybe it doesn't. One the one hand, I will surrender and trust that in the not-indefinite future, my beloved will accept my need for her control and my submission and my service, in whatever combination those things please her or she's willing to do for me, will happen. Kind of like chastity play in a sense. On the other hand, if nothing ever happens - we start the arrangement but it's no different from what we do now - we still get to talk every week or whenever our checkins are, and I can tell her how crazy I am. Assuming I can make it that long.

By which I talk myself into just chilling out and surrendering, but it's not easy. Perhaps by the end of the evening my beloved and I will have talked and things will be different. Though I took a look at her draft notes on our arrangement, and I fear not so much. I'll post those eventually (if she approves). On the other other hand, before we start the arrangement, I'm free to ask for what I want, so I guess the lesson is that that's what I ought to do.

What we talked about last night

2010-08-05T14:42:00.001-07:00

My beloved described it as a two level discussion - the meta discussion about what the parameters were around our arrangement, and possible aspects of the arrangement itself.

She read the entire blog, which is a little scary to me since I really don't remember what I wrote back in the early days. But I think she got that it is a snapshot of where I am at any given moment. It's also wierd writing about her in the third person given that she's participating in the blog now.

One of my fantasies was for her to approve these blog posts. Her concern is that this might mean that I was no longer comfortable writing everything in the blog. I don't think that's a problem, given that the whole purpose of the thing is for there to be full communication between us.

In the event, she's agreed to do so, not for the reasons that have been floated in some other blogs, as to keep the content appropriate (though I guess she could do that if it's what she wanted). But more to ensure that she knows everything that's on my mind. So this is the first post that she's read and approved.

We didn't decide anything last night on the "possible aspects of the arrangement", but threw out a lot of ideas. One thing she was adamant about was "no blogging at work." To the extent that I've done this (and I have), it was stupid, and she's right to insist that I not do so. Not, I guess that it matters - if she says so, that's how it goes.

She talked about how she chooses to view this - as a game, as a deal, or as an arrangement. Which just goes to show how words are loaded. She reminded me that a long time ago when she referred to this as a game, I blogged about how upset I got about that. I don't remember it, but will look for it in the blog. Her point is that people take games seriously, and I agreed - thinking of Sarah at MaleChastityBlog.com. Sarah's take on this is that it's a game she plays with her husband, but none the less serious for that. I think we agreed that this confusion over words was behind us. Because what's most important to me is that she take this seriously - that it not be "she's humoring me" or "look at the silly thing" we're doing (which is the conntation I think I gave to "game" before.)

On the other hand, part of the reason we communicated so poorly about this in the past was my perception that she really didn't want to think about this. So to the extent that we could put an arrangement in place, like kneeling before bed, if it wasn't working for me, I didn't feel like it was a good idea to bring up my reservations because I was afraid she's say, "Oh, fine. We agreed to do this thing and now you're trying to micro-manage it. Remember, I'm not the one who wants to be doing this." She agreed that this had been true back in the early early days (would you believe almost 20 years ago) that we were doing this, but that was a long time ago.

Regarding the seriousness of the thing, she compared it to the arrangement we have with orgasm control and the gold chain she gave me a long time ago. As long as I'm wearing it, I need to ask her for permission for an orgasm. This is inconvenient for me, since life and family commitments often interfere with just being able to go up to her and say "Could you take this thing off so I can toss one off?" So, often, I'm wanting relief but unable to get it. Which is just the kind of control I crave.

We talked about extending this kind of control to other areas, without getting in to any specifics. I did share my fantasy about "high protocol days" or times; times when I'd have a set of rules that are too strict to be followed realistically over the long term, but that would work for an hour, or a day, or maybe even a weekend.

I also shared how totally hot Kathy's arrangement with her husband is, in which she snaps her fingers and he has to kowtow until she releases him. What that says is, "regardless of what else we're doing or how mundane life is at the moment, you're always under my control". And that's the reenforcement that I crave most. And it doesn't have to be something as submissive as kowtowing. I joked that it could be "touch your finger to your nose until I tell you to stop." The point is the control, not the activity. She was concerned to figure out three classes of these: ones that we could do when we're alone (easiest), ones that we could do when we're around family and friends (with obvious needs for subtlty), and ones she could IM or text me anywhere. I hadn't thought about the latter two, and was thrilled that her thoughts went that way.

I mentioned my long-term fantasy about "need a cookie" - that there are times when I need an affirmation of this relationship. I've always thought of those as "I need a cookie," and my thought was that she'd have a "cookie jar" of things she could tell me to do. I think the most important part of that to me is to know that she's not laughing at me for needed that. I was pretty well reassured on that point.

We didn't talk about consequences, though we skirted around them a little. I mentioned that writing lines seems to have gotten popular in this part of the blogosphere recently. That got us in to a discusson about how this kind of relationship skirts parent/child issues, a place we totally don't want to go. But my beloved pointed out that this could be equally well framed as supervisor/worker issues. I did mention the "pressing a penny to the wall with your nose" meme, which has no erotic value for me, but that's the point.

We talked about who we might become if we were to do this. She is (rightfully) concerned that we'll become my parents - a very controlling and bitchy mother and a very sweet but down-trodden father. I suggested we go more for the model of her mother, who in the final days of her terminal illness was joyously imperious, and who we all thought was having a brief taste fo the imperious old woman she never got to be. And while my beloved pointed out that it got a little tedious after a while, I pointed out that the advantages of doing the relationship consciously as we are is that it won't get tedious - it's what I signed up for.

I also pointed out that I think she and Thumper's Belle are not dissimilar in many ways. When he talks about Belle's concern that the people around her be happy (though I can't find the link right now), that very much strikes a chord in how my beloved relates to those around her.

Just in terms of communicating, I said that the two nicest words she could say to me are "I want." (Thinking about it this morning, I realized "you will" or "you are going to" work equally well) because then I get to do things for her. This got us in to the difference between doing things because we love each other, and doing things because we're in this peculiar relationship. I wan't totally able to decode that difference, but to date, when she asks me to paint her toenails (to take one example), I do because it's something I can do for her that she doesn't enjoy doing. But in the context of the relationship, if she says, "I want you to paint my toenails" it means something very different: we're doing this peculiar thing, and you're doing this for me. As I said above, it's all about the acknowledgement of the relationship, more than the actual activities themselves. I'm sure there's mroe exploration to be done around that, but it seems like a good place to start.

Then she told me she wanted me to kiss every inch of her body, and one thing led to another....

So we didn't actually resolve anything, except that we're going to do "this", whatever "this" turns out to be. And I was incredibly appreciative that she read the blog in and saw it as a constructive thing. And she was very gracious about appreciating image of her that I painted in the blog.

Sharing This Blog with My Beloved

2010-08-05T14:17:00.000-07:00

Last Saturday night, I found that I had so much on my mind relating to this blog, and whatever the intersection is among wife-led-marriage, female-led-relationships, dominance and submission, discipline, and whatever other labels one might care to attach, that I had to share the existance of this blog with my beloved.

We had, as I recall, a good, if brief, conversation about it, after which she asked me to remind her of the url a couple of times. She read it during her business trip earlier this week.

It feels great to have shared this. There's so much, from the profound to the trivial that I think about relating to either the blog or the things I read in other blogs linked from here, that it felt very isolating not to be able to share that.

After she got home, we talked about it. That conversation is the subject of the next post.

Getting to "The Conversation"

2010-08-01T04:15:00.000-07:00

I mentioned this blog to my beloved for the third time recently; the first time was a couple of years ago when I wanted to share it with another member of our extended family. There was no way I was going to do that without first telling her about it, but it turned out to be in the middle of a much larger conversation about our relative and about kink and fantasy in general. I reminisced about the "Man From Uncle" episode that got me started and she described a "Star Trek" episode that was very revealing about her character. Nice to know there's still stuff to discover after 25 plus years married!

But all that stuff swamped the discussion about the blog and, as it tuned out, she forgot the url and never asked about it. I was a little disappointed but didn't want to nag about it so end of conversation.

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned it again - I don't remember if it was on our vacation (when we had another conversation that I'll try to remember to blog about) or later. But as subsequently came out in conversation, she forgot the url again. Finally last Saturday I mentioned it a third time (which was when all the revelations about the previous mentions came out) and she agreed that the fact that she couldn't remember the url probably meant something and we left it at that. Finally, on her way out of town she texted that she was looking for the blog but couldn't remember the address. (Guess it really isn't that memorable!) I texted it to her and later she remarked on the fact that there was a lot to catch up on there.

I'm so glad the blog is out in the open between us. As "she" put it on http://forever-hers2010.blogspot.com/ secrets are really really bad things to keep in a relationship and this one, though well within the bounds of what we had negotiated, was still corrosive, mainly because I'd read about stuff and be contemplating it and be unable to mention it. That's over now at least as far as I can tell, or at least I certainly want it to be. Some of it was trivial stuff like finding an ad for a campsite we go to beside someone's blog post and some of it was more profound, like the effects listening to Masocast has had on me.

My beloved sent me an email saying she'd read the whole blog (wow, she reads fast, but I knew that) and wondered if email might be a good way to discuss this stuff. She said some other stuff that was very very sweet and understanding as well.

So now my thought is whether this blog might be a good way of discussing this. The Forever Hers blog is such a frank and helpful discussion between a husband and wife that I might hope we could do the same and be a resource for others as well.

At least for starters I think I'd like my beloved to approve all the posts to this blog. That way she'd know there's nothing on my mind she doesn't know about and of course it's a delicious control thing for me.

I guess I'll ask her.

What Do I Want. Redux. Also Shame.

2010-07-24T15:24:00.000-07:00

Back in December of 2008, I wrote a post titled What Do I Want?. I find myself still asking that question. And I think it's not because I'm totally clueless. Rather I think it's for two reasons:

1) What I want changes over time, and

2) I can't really figure out what I want without engaging with my beloved.

And why can't I do that latter? Because I have this deep sense of shame about what I want, and perhaps who I am - I'm still working on unraveling those.

The shame has been thrown in to stark relief, as you may have guessed from the preceding posts, by listening to Axe and Maymay talk about themselves and talk with their partners about being a submissive man.

I want to get to the place where I can talk about myself like that.

Also thrown into stark highlight by Kathy's comment on her submissive husband as a "real" man. And while I don't feel any less like a "real" man for my proclivities, I do fear that my beloved will feel that way. That that I have one iota of evidence for that. But that's the narrative in my head.

One of the comments my beloved may a long time ago is that she doesn't want to turn me in to a child, and is uneasy that wherever I want to take this relationship, risks going in that direction. Kathy had a comment apropos of that as well.

There's a hole in my heart

2010-06-24T08:24:00.000-07:00

Just to be clear, I mean that metaphorically. And I couldn't really differentiate that from saying "There's a hole in my soul." But the phrase occurred to me yesterday on my ride home from work, and I can't get it out of my head.

I'm trying to use D&S to fill that hole. I don't know why. I don't know how it's supposed to work. But it feels like that's where the drive comes from.

Last night two snakes came in my dreams. One was tied up in a knot, or injured, but was slithering along anyway. The other, much smaller one, bit me. I don't know if it was poisonous or not.

Don't know what that's all about, but it won't get out of my head, so I figured I'd put it here.

Listen to Masocast

2010-06-11T04:33:00.000-07:00

Seriously, I seldom tell people they need to do things, but if you have any ambiguity at all about the role of kink in your life, listen to the Axe's Masocasts. You'll find people talking about the sorts of things you're interested in (if you're reading this blog), people who are funny and self-reflective, and above all, OK with themselves. Which is what motivated the following post.

Two things happen when you read a lot of blog posts: you get titilated, and you learn stuff. On the learning stuff front, I was touched by a blog post by a poly person in Vancouver who talked about being the misfit in highschool, and finding she fit in with the poly crowd. it was a link from a comment on another blog, so I may not succeed in finding it.

That was echoed by one of the Masocasts - I think it was the one on being submissive to a couple - where she talked a lot about Ren Faires, and how that is where she found herself.

That transformation - going from being "unloveable" - i think the Masocast interviewee put it: "No one's ever going to want to fuck me" - to loveable - is one that I haven't undergone, in some sense.

many many years ago, in a meditation retreat, the person directing the retreat asked, something to the effect of "what is the deepest statement that motivates you?" (I'm sure it was better put than that - but I know my answer immediately was, "Not good enough." This is all about that.

It's why the masocasts are so absolutely compelling for me. They'are about people who felt a lot of the way I used to feel, wanted a lot of the same things I want, but their inner monologue isn't "Not good enough", it's "Look what i found, look how I made a life from the desires and circumstances I was given."

I didn't do that. I made a great life - and it really is great - with a loving community, two amazing kids, a beloved who is a rock - more so than perhaps is good for herself some times, in a beautifuly place, doing a job I like a lot (well, it's early days), with health and probably enough money to put the kids through college and probably retire. Wow, who could ask for more? And I'm not asking for more. I'm asking for "different."

I'm asking for, "It's OK to be who you are." Which, just about every time we talk, my beloved says. But which I have to tease apart as well:

It's not OK to think I'm not OK. Wow, how self-referential is that! But to be submissive out of a sense that the only way I can have any worth is to be what someone else wants me to be is just never going to bring happiness. My beloved knows this, and, God bless her, refuses to go there.

is that what all submission is about? once could argue that it is, but I thank Masocast again for really opening out the definition of "kink" for me. being in to control, and in to submission, and a service submissive, and in to pain are (I suppose, arguably in the case of the first two) different things, and are only four aspects of the polymorphous perversity people label "kink" or "queer."

One of those is "I'm not good enough and I don't have any value unless you give it to me." That, I think, is a disfunctional one that will never make me happy. But when I had the first of the three pro-domme sessions I haver had, it was nothing about that. It was about "She tied me up and whipped me till her arm hurt" and That remains a peak experience in my life. Afterwards, I kissed her boots (because I asked her if I could - holy shit: asking for what I wanted! - Possible only because I was higher than a kite on endorphins at the time?), and that was, "It's OK to want to kiss someone's boots." dang - I get little emotional palpatations just writing that. Have I ever felt that OK with myself in my life? Or am I just romaticizing in hindsight. I really think not.

For a while, I did a distance-domme thing with someone I met on-line. Ignoring all the distance issues and 24/7 issues while being married to (to my beloved who knew about the whole thing), it feels to me, and I would conjecture, that that relationship was based in "not good enough", in "you suck." And that's why it felt so wrong.

So the problem of doing this with my beloved is that it's my problem that we're trying to solve. In the masocast I listend to today, the guy in the couple said there's no point being dommed by someone who's just playing a role. And it's true. The whole thing is about communication and energy going back and forth, and creatging something and having fun. I think a Pro Domme needs to either do that, or be really good at playing that she's doing that - good in an acting kind of way, where the acting is the truth in the moment - that thing that makes acting special.

Needing to be Needed - Key to MY Compulsions?

2010-06-11T04:25:00.000-07:00

This post and the subsequent one (well, previous one if you're reading blog-style) came out in a huge rush one day while I was on the train. They're not very D&S/Femdom/FLR-ish, but they're a lot about who I am and why I am as I am, and I have no other place to put them, so here they are.

And let me just say that my definition of a compulsion is "something that you can't NOT do." And I think my interest in power-related sex qualifies. Not all compulsions are all bad, and some good has come from mine. But a compulsion it remains.

Current hypothesis: this is what is behind my need for a D&S relationship. My beloved, if she were to be dominant, would need certain things from me, because she needed/wanted them. it would be important to her that I be/do certain things. And that would make me needed, and that would feed what is, I think my deepest insecurity: not to be needed or wanted.

I always wondered how this interacted with work, and this hypothesis fits. It is a source of frustration to me that I always let my work "to do" list get out of hand. A long time ago, I figured out that I am very uneasy with an empty to-do list. Now I know why: no one would need me.

It's also why I'm a pretty good customer-centered service provider: If I do things for people, that illustrates that they need me.

Personal e-mail, same thing: if there are a ton of (non junk - I'm not totally stupid) e-mails in my box, then people need me to respond. As soon as I respond, they don't need me any more.

Same reason I don't finish things: If the thing is pending to be completed, then I'm needed to do it. If it's complete, then I'm not needed.

And it ties in with the "needing to ask for things" in a way that is just becoming clear: asking for something you need is related to need. It means I'm allowed to need and my need isn't totally irrelevant. Perhaps it's why denial play is so interesting. it would mean that my beloved would be saying to me, "I know that you need, and your need is important to me, and I want to control it." This is all not that clear, but it hooks in some how I think.

What Means What To Whom

2010-05-16T06:24:00.001-07:00

As I mentioned, previously, it's been a busy couple of months. Among the events were a 10 day trip I took with family, but not with my beloved. We were far enough away that communication was difficult and there was no private time, really.

When I returned, I mentioned to my beloved that abstaining from masturbation had been a real challenge during my trip. She asked me what I did about it, in a tone of voice that implied that she expected that I'd just gone ahead anyway. I said, "What choice did I have? I did nothing."

I wish I remember her response. I mostly remember what it wasn't. It wasn't, "Good," or "Thank you", or "I'm glad," or "That's as it should be," or "Well, we do have an agreement," or anything else that acknowledged this arrangement and it's importance to her. It wasn't negative, and it wasn't bemused or amused, which would have been deadly, but I don't remember what it was.

This is all on my mind because she is returning from a two week absence in about an hour and a half. And while I miss her a lot, frankly, high on my list is to make my balls stop hurting, and get some relief. Which I can't say to her in the first hour or two that she's home, or she'll think that's all I care about. Which I don't think is true, but I'd probably be hard-put to prove.

We've talked a little on a few occasions about whether this means anything to her, and it seems like it does. Though seldom at a loss for words, she's been unable/unwilling to articulate to me how important it is, and why, and whether it does anything for her. While it's been a major thing I've been thinking about in her absence, I'd bet money that it hasn't crossed her mind once while she's been away. Dealing with that imbalance is the challenge for us, I think.

While we normally communicate fairly well for a couple that's been married for 25+ years, on this subject we're only "so-so." I have mentioned on a couple of occasions to her that talking about the arrangement we have is almost more fun for me than the actual "doing" (or not doing, in this case)... But we seem to have been unsuccessful in making that conversation part of our relationship.

Even at the simple level, I remember on at least two occasions telling her how important some acknowledgment of our arrangement is to me when we have sex. When I've been working really hard to get her off - and it often takes a certain amount of care and attention and sometimes stamina - when she's done, I need some acknowledgment that she's done, that she doesn't want PIV sex (because she does about half of the time), and that I'm not getting any.

That goes against all of her "good girl"/"nurturing mother" programming, which, I suspect, is why she doesn't say anything. I offered suggestions that I thought were compatible with that, indicating that if she were to say "Thank you," or "That was nice," or "I'm done," those would be non-controlling, non-"mean" ways of telling me that I'm being denied. But she doesn't.

In a somewhat topping-from-the-bottom move, I even couched it as, "I need to know when to stop clinging all over you," knowing that that behavior annoys her, and kept at it hoping for an "I'm done" or "Go to sleep" or some kind of reaction. I think as close as I got was she removed my hand from her breast. I'm not such a brat that I kept on after that.

I guess I'd have to say that this is the single most disappointing aspect our arrangement: she gets to ignore it, and it's all about self-control for me, with no outside acknowledgment from her of what's going on. As I said above, I need the explicit communication. The only explicit communication I get around this is when I ask for permission to masturbate. Usually that's followed by a long moment of thought on her part - and I have no idea what she's thinking, though I suspect it has to do with planning out the next couple of days to see what she thinks the chances are that she'll want sex - followed by a response - "Ask me later", "Yes", or "Not now". Seldom just "No." Which is OK with me.

Even when we have sex, as I mentioned above, it only ends in PIV about half of the time. Unfortunately (I think), PIV sex means I get to cum - especially with my reduced frequency for orgasm, I can't be in her for very long and not cum. This seems to be OK with her, but to the extent that she wants to keep me denied (and I honestly have no idea what that extent is), I think it means that her decision process is flawed. If she wants PIV sex without my having an orgasm, she ought to be telling me to masturbate if she thinks she'll want sex at all. That way if it ends up with PIV, I'll be able to control myself.

Following this logic myself, I guess she ought to be telling me to ruin those orgasms, so that the pleasure is under her control. Oh my, what a hot thought - no pleasurable orgasms except a her direction. It does bring up in my mind the question of "what do I want when I'm asking her for permission to masturbate?" Relief from sexual pressure? Or pleasure? I'm inclined to think the former.

I don't get to ask very often. The protocol is that she takes off my gold necklace, and tells me when it has to be back on. And she puts it on. I've never operated the clasp. And I've never masturbated with it on.

Our lives are crazy enough that I mostly get to ask her in the mornings before we get up for work. Though with new work schedules, I'm often out before she wakes up. And she comes to bed after I do, so those windows to ask are gone. The kids are around less, so there should be more opportunities to ask after work. It will be interesting to see how that goes.

This post has gone on waaayyy longer than I expected. But I do find it helpful to be able to go back and read over where I was at a given time.

And then I went off and read Maymay's post on what intercourse means and it felt like he'd distilled a lot of the inchoate desires I just expressed into something with much more universal value. Especially because I'm pretty sure sex is (not to mention PIV sex) is much less interesting to my beloved than it is to me.

Catching Up

2010-05-16T06:23:00.001-07:00

I'll steal a trope from "Tom Allen" (whose writing I rather admire), and say that it's been a busy couple of months in the Unremarkable household. Which doesn't entirely explain the absence of posts. If you look at the history of this blog, you'll see that it seems to go in a two year cycle. This is something I had suspected about myself for 10 or more years, but never had a mechanism to measure. Had I been more disciplined, I suppose I could have been consciously recording my interest in - gee, what I guess I'll call "sex, sex games, power, and control" since right now I don't know exactly how to characterize it.

But the blog has served as a proxy for that, and here we are. I have no idea what to conclude from that two year cycle, however. Rather than trying to catch up en-masse, I'll just write what's in my head and trust that anything I miss will bubble up to the surface in its own due course.

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2010-05-14T07:56:00.001-07:00

... to reduce Chinese link spam, of which there has been a bunch (in case you were wondering what all those deleted comments were).

I've written a ton of stuff. While I figure out how to boil it down into some blog posts, go look at The Male Chastity Blog. So far, it's like she's reading my mind.

Paraphilias as Kink: Healthy or Unhealthy?

2010-03-19T04:09:00.000-07:00

Will you be surprised to read that my answer is, "It depends"?

The observation stems from a conversation my beloved and I had about paraphilias. It's Dr. Kafka's preferred term, part of "Prudence"s ill-considered advice to the mother of the young man with the latex fetish.

Our conversation started from my telling her about the prior post. Elderly parents are presenting management issues around health care and it became obvious how many control issues my mom exercises over my dad. She recently decided on the timing of some surgery for him and it became apparent that after 50 years of living together, he can't decide for himself.

I commented to my beloved that I seem to be working out my control issues in a much more ritualized fashion, with my interest in submission and control in sexual relationships. This got us to talking about how things have changed for me, from "this is who I am" to "this is something I like to do in relationships.". That's a big change, about which more later, unless I've already written about it.

This got me to my shrink, who I liked, and Kafka, who I didn't like when he was my shrink, and it got us talking about paraphilias. Figuring out where thy come from seems pointless. One can imagine FMRI studies that might illustrate how they're "caused" by brain chemicals "leaking" from one are to another adjacent areas of neural activity interfering with each other, but that's entirely conjectural not so interesting.

What's more interesting is the role paraphilias can play in a relationship. It's basically the old question thatcomes up in a bunch of relationships where one person has a paraphilia: the other person asks, "are you relating to me, or to the boots, corset, latex, leather, whatever?"

The answer, I think, is that it depends on how that partner relates to the fetish item. By example: if she wears boots because they make her feel attractive or sexy, and I have a passion for boots and can't keep my eyes or hands off of her, then WE are having a relationship, and boots are part of that. If she, out of the goodness of her heart, wears boots because she knows it will make me happy, and I have the same reaction and can't keep my eyes or hands off of her, I'm not relating to her, I'm relating to the boots. It could, at the extreme, be practically anyone wearing the boots.

For it to be a functional "good" situation, there's a three way relationship happening: us to each other and each of us to the item.

To bring this full circle to the young man with the latex glove fetish, like a person with any unusual sexual interest, it may make his life more complicated, or it may limit his voice of (satisfying) partners, but it may well make his life more interesting. And as there is no "magic pill" to cure him, his process of understanding himself and his partner is more likely to make for a satisfying life, if you believe Thoreau that "an unexamined life is not worth living."

Advice About Curing a Kink

2010-03-15T14:47:00.000-07:00

Bear with me here, the set up is a little involved....

So, over on Devastating But Inconsequential, there was a reference to a Slate Magazine Dear Prudence column, in which a concerned Mom was wondering whether or not to intervene with her teenage son over his fetish for latex gloves. "Prudence" cited Dr. Martin Kafka, a "noted expert" on treatment of fetishes. The gist of the advice was, "Save him now, or he'll destroy his life." "Abby" cited an article about Kafka in the New York Times, back from 2000.

Now, comments from ex-patients of a psychiatrist often read like rants from a jilted spouse, so I'm going to try to avoid doing that. But I was a patient of Dr. Kafka's back in the early '90s and I was supremely unimpressed. In fact, when I told the shrink with whom I ended up, about Kafka's theories and methods, I got an amused and ever-so-slightly satirical reaction - way more reaction than I expected to get from one professional about another.

But "Prudence's" comment did motivate me to read the article about Kafka. While I find the main thrust of his argument to be deeply deeply flawed, there was just enough thought-provoking substance in the article to, well, get me thinking.

First thing, Kafka's theory about treating appetite "disorders" with selective seritonen uptake inhibitors (SSRIs - Prozac and the family of drugs that followed it) is complete bullshit, at least at the level at which he promotes it. I think it would be fair to say that sexual appetites in *some* people may be related to "appetites" as we more traditionally think of them. But to say that the two are identical is facile. And then to build on top of that the conjectural notion that something about brain chemisty in those with this "appetite disorder" means that treating them with massive doses of SSRIs will "solve" the "problem" seems entirely unwarranted.

It's not like you couldn't do the study, or anything. And I'm sure big Pharma would love to make that possible. But based on a study of one (that would be me), his whole logic chain and intervention doesn't hold water.

By the time he was done with me, I was taking large doses of SSRIs - so large that I routinely fell asleep in the back seats of taxis in the developing countries where I did business. After about a month or two of that, I realized that we were on the wrong track here. And that's when I found the shrink I worked with for several years.

So, was I "cured" by Kafka? In no way, shape, or form. I don't recall my "fixations" be diminished in any significant way, and I don't know how Kafka would claim to know, since his "interviews" were limited to a small number of rapid-fire questions, and one-or-two word answers (he explicitly said he didn't want anything longer).

So was I "cured" by my more traditional "talking therapy" shrink? I'd have to say "No" and "Yes." The "No" is first for a reason: there were periods with him where all of my interests in control and domination (to use a short-hand) just seemed irrelevant. And obviously, those were simpler times to deal with with my beloved. But they didn't last, and while there were some "aha!" moments, there was never anything big that seemd to cut the Gordian knot. But "Yes" in the sense I, and my beloved, have a much much better sense of what is going on here, and who I am, and why this is important to me, than we had before.

And I think that is directly a result of all the talking I did with my shrink. He (and I) didn't "solve" a "problem", but we built structures around which inquiry could take place so that my "problem" is less of a "problem" and more of something that fits in to my (and our) life.

Is that to say that there is nothing about Kafka's formulation that makes sense? Not at all. The metaphors of "addiction" and "appetite" are compelling in some ways, and there have been many times in my life when I am not in control of my interests in pornography (definition of that later) and what I choose to call "outre" sexuality.

But to cut back to the chase, "Prudence's" advice to the parent borders on the criminal, especially when she gets to the part about refering him to counselors who specialize in treating abusers. But is going to a shrink a bad idea? Certainly not. A skim of most of the self-identified "kinky" respondants to "Prudence's" post would seem to find them sympathetic to the notion of inquring as to what part this fetish will play in this 13-year-old's life, and helping him come to terms with it - "Know theyself" as the old saying goes. Where he chooses to go with that knowledge is his decision.

Figuring out what's not working, or an emo whine

2010-01-23T08:14:00.000-08:00

What's not working about our sex life? Just the fact that I can put it that way says a lot about where we've come to. I've been listening to unspeakable axe's masocasts recently and am amazed by what it sounds like to hear intelligent articulate not-fucked-up people talk about kinky sex. While I talk a good line about being sex positive, I don't think I'm very good at it.

Until I can talk to my beloved about Mistress Matisse's blog and about the Masocasts (to name two), I'm not really as comfortable with this as I'd like to believe.

I think there are two problems: 1) I do have a sexual addiction. By this I mean that I'm not totally on control of when I seek out sexual material and I think about it way more than I would like to. I don't think the latter would be a problem I it weren't for the former. But on the "you are what you think about" premise, if I'm not going to be a sexuality advocate then I need to be thinking about this less. (Forever In Her Service talks about this more positively than I have been in "My Inner Addict".)

2) I'm not going to be a sexuality advocate (better get around to defining that soon) because my beloved simply isn't very interested in sex. I mean she likes it well enough, but if that particular dish wasn't on the menu more than once in a blue moon, I don't think she'd miss it.

And I don't think this is because sex is physically unsatisfying. After having lived together for about 30 years, she's having more orgasms than she used to because we've set up sexual intercourse so that it's all about her pleasure. But in that perverse way that people joke about a reluctant wife dominating her husband - "you want me to do things to you only at my whim? Well, I choose not to dominate you; serve me by being vanilla" - she enjoys the sex we have but doesn't do much for me. Even something as simple as asking her to pinch my nipples is something that happens very rarely. And if it's very rarity were a part of some other dynamic - "this is a reward for you" - I could deal with that.

Instead, it's all only about her pleasure whenever we have sex - not even an acknowledgment by her that "you're no getting off because I don't feel like it" which itself would be very hot.

In truth, I have to cut the woman a lot of slack because I've said it's all about her. I think we need to re-talk over the dynamic so that it's about us both being fulfilled. That's why the comment from the Masocast episode that I referred to in a previous post from struck me so deeply - learning what we want is, for some of us, an iterative process. So while saying "I truly deeply believe that I am happiest serving you" may be true at the time I said it, it may equally and honestly not be true after six months of trying it out. It's a lot to expect someone to accompany that journey when she doesn't really care about the subject matter.

I suppose this sounds a lot lime whining about my beloved, and it's true that I'd love to wave a magic wand and have her know exactly what kind of relationship I'd like to have, particularly as I don't know that myself. But failing that, I would like to have her put some energy into the journey with me, beyond the (admirable) "what would you like me to do next?". I know (because I've asked) that if I say "could you read this or that of to get a sense of what's going on inside my head?" the answer is a very honest "I don't care that much about this stuff and I have too much else to do." I can't make her care about this, so I have to accept the honesty of that answer.

But it surprises me that she hasn't even read this blog. I told her about it last fall, when I wanted to share it with a relative. That worked out well (I think). And I wasn't going to do that without sharing it with my beloved first. Which I did, and we had a wonderful discussion that gave me insight into her, and in which she was, as ever, very understanding of me. But it didn't lead to her reading this, which surprised and disappointed me. Which means, I suppose, that I ought to ask her to read it. But I fear she'll ask me "why?" and say, with justification, "can't you just tell me what you want to say to me" and "I'm not that interested in the subject."

The true answer is that I can't tell her what I want to say, not because I can't speak it, but because often I don't know what it is until I write it here.

Which leads me to the conclusion that maybe I need to let all this go, not because it's wrong, but because it just may be not one of those things that I'm going to get in this life. And that's potentially ok , even though it's not my preference. I don't know if that's true, however, and I don't know if I can do it. I do know that what's most important in this life is to be in relationship with people, and if my kink gets in the way of that in marriage, then it's something I should let go of if I can. I don't know if I can.

I didn't mean for this post to get all emo but I'm hoping that writing will get me out of this emotionally stuck place and clear the decks for the many other things I need to be thinking about.

Another thing about that conversation on Masocast...

2010-01-14T06:06:00.000-08:00

I forgot to mention one of the other comments made by one of the women on the Masocast roundtable. I think the subject was whether she would top her boyfriend. Her response was that she had been through so many changes around dominance and submission in her mind and through her time as a dominatrix that she didn't feel it would be fair to drag someone whom she was emotionally involved with through those changes.

This felt very familiar. And the idea that one doesn't have to feel bad about that, that this is all part of an exploration, was very powerful to me. Because I have, of course, dragged my beloved through just these kind of changes - from "Women are superior" to "I want to serve" to "Punish me", from "this is who I am" to "this is what I love to do" to "this is something I don't seem to be able not to be interested in", from "I need to be totally out and in public about this" to "This is just something we do between us" to "I can do these activities with someone but not have an emotional connection with them" - and I'm not sure I even remember what-all else.

She has been patient and supportive, even though some very large percentage of this leaves her cold. The idea that this journey is not an indicator of my screwed-up-ness, but a set of realizations that can't happen without the journey is a very revealing one.

Don't know why I forgot to mention that in the other post.

Coming soon (I hope) - What happened in March and where we are now.

Not Feeling Guilty

2010-01-09T10:57:00.000-08:00

I find it so hard not to feel guilty about my interest in... interest in... what exactly am I interested in, anyway. TTWD? Sex? Power dynamics?

Anyway, I've found that for me, a really good tonic regarding that is
Masocast put together by Unspeakable Axe, particularly his recent "Dominant's Roundtable". OK, I loved the fact that a bunch of women who are into ... into ... whatever it is we call this thing ... would sit around and talk about it. And I was particularly touched by some of their observations on the men who see them professionally - compassion basically - a realization of how hard this is for some people (moi, say for instance) to come to terms with, but how persistent people can be about it. And while there were the requisite jokes about thinking with "the little head," there was also a fair amount of insight and sympathy.

But most powerful for me was the sense of comfort with the whole subject, not only on the part of the women talking, but on Unspeakable Axe's questions, and (in some of his other podcasts) on on the part of some of the "audience."

This has been helpful. To wit: I was telling a story the other night and my beloved snapped, "Why do you tell that this way?" She later apologized and we had a good talk about how we disagree with each other. Some how it came around to her saying that she concerned (rightly, I might add) that some of my interest in submission comes from not feeling that good about myself. It was directly as a result of listening to those podcasts that I could say (in jest, but seriously), "Beat me with a stick, but don't beat me with words." We laughed and I'm not sure anything came of it, but being able just to name how I feel is still huge.

The world is helping many things change in my life right now ("It's the economy, stupid..."), but I'm hoping reorienting my relation to ... whatever this is ... is part of that change: Not regarding it just as an addiction that must be gotten over, but as an interest that can have a balanced place in my life (or around which I can build a balanced life).

I rather admire the way Tom Allen presents this. Along with liking his writing....

...And don't forget about...

2010-01-02T15:23:00.000-08:00

Tom Allen on why orgasm control is fun: Rat in a Cage

And on my fantasy about how orgasm control might happen in our relationship: Coming Together

but not unless we start talking a whole lot more.

And why am I updating this blog after basically 9 months of inactivity?

I don't know. But I do know that my obsession with sex comes and goes, and here it comes again. I also know that it comes back in different ways every time, and that every time it comes back, the more I talk about it with my beloved, the more progress I make on this. And that this blog is my way of not ignoring it, feeling guilty about it, or pretending that my interest does not exist.

So I don't know if I'll be posting a whole lot; I'll be interested to find out.

I Want...

2009-08-06T11:10:00.000-07:00

"M", over on "Submitting to Her", wrote a post on his wife "P"'s ordering dinner for them. It clearly was an intense moment for him, and he reflected on it.

He said, in so many words:


I want her to get so used to...
I want her to realize...
I want her to never consider...
I want her to demand...

This is what I find so difficult about this kind of relationship. Is it about what I want? Or about what she wants? Or about what I want her to want?

And there's nothing wrong with it being about what I want, except that this is so at odds with the outer form of the relationship - her being in charge, my doing what she wants.

It's why I've found this kind of relationship so confusing in my own life. Perhaps for "M" and "P", she does want all these things, and his expressing his wants is just a way for them to communicate about them, and achieve some kind of "shared language" around what they both want. (From some of her earlier posts, it certainly seems like this could be true.)

But for some of us, where it's pretty clear that what my beloved wants is for this all to "go away", I don't know how to resolve the dynamic.

...

And, "Yes", I will explain the hiatus. When I have a minute...

Wanting, Being, Getting, Needing

2009-01-18T11:19:00.000-08:00

It's finally occurred to me that these four things are related in some peculiar ways. When my beloved said she'd explore this with me, several things happened.

The first was Being: she was saying it was OK for me to be as I am. This is big. HUGE. I've been this way - wanted these things - since I was about 11 years old - yes, I remember the night. And it's never been OK to want them. Never been OK to be the way I am.

Even when I explored these things with other lovers (before we were married) or even when we explored them together, in our halting and flawed attempts early on, it still wasn't OK for me to be this way. It felt more like it was OK for me to be not-OK, to be deviant or "sick" or whatever model we were using.

This is the first time that I've been in a place, and we've been in a place to have a conversation about this, and the overwhelming feeling I get is one of relief: I can be who I am, we can talk about "this stuff" (thought that's harder than I thought). And it's not because we're "working on my problem." It's because this is how I feel and she's willing to hear that.

What I realized this week, is that wanting and being are totally independent from getting. What I mean, is that I may not even need to get what I want, if it's OK to want it, if it's OK to be as I am. I'm not sure I entirely believe this yet, and I'm not entirely sure it's true, but it's occurred to me as a possibility. (I wonder if akin to what Strong And Submissive has realized, and has kept him in his relationship. No matter, just wondering.)

I also wonder if this kind of asymmetrical relationship is really what I want, or whether I just want the idea of it. I may not ever know if my beloved doesn't decide that it's what she wants, and maybe that's OK. I certainly don't think I'm very good at this - I leave too much undone, or too many offers un-made. I'm too lazy for it. Aside from the titillation value (which is considerable), I think that's what I like about Her Knight's experience with his Princess: She is unbendingly rigorous in her expectation of perfection from him, and without nagging, she never lets him forget it.

I don't know if I could succeed in that kind of relationship, or if I would enjoy it. But I know I can't succeed in what we have now, where I just need to be good enough to do all the things I know I ought to want to do, or that I just plain ought to do to keep the wheels turning in our house. What's hard, is if I don't my beloved just picks up the slack, to the point where she gets frustrated about it.

I'm so tempted to say "It would be so much easier if she would just tell me what she wants," but I think I know that: for all of this to go away and for me to be "normal." Early early on, I wrote about that possibility, in the middle of "(Two to Tango." Certainly at that point (and at the point at which those experiences happened), I wasn't ready to let go of "this stuff." I don't think I am now, either.

On the other hand, maybe it's not important in this life that I get what I want. I think it is important that I'm OK wanting what I want. But once I get OK with that, the answer well may be that I don't get that in this life. There are more than a few things I'm not going to get in this life, and I seem to be OK with those. Why can't this be one?

And Then She Makes Me Wonder

2009-01-12T19:00:00.000-08:00

Exactly a week since these events, but the set enough of the stage to be worth posting anyway.

Holiday season and tedious house-guests meant we didn't have much time for each other, physically, emotionally, or in terms of just plain old minutes. So I was a little surprised when we were at a friends house and she put a pillow down on the floor by her feet and motioned me to sit there. It was a natural thing to do in the context, and I might have sat there anyway, but it was a pleasant surprise that she suggested it.

Later that evening at the buffet, it didn't occur to her that I'd be glad to serve her, and I couldn't suggest it or just do it without making a big show of things, so I didn't.

Even later that evening in bed, we had quite the sexual good time, only hers ended in an orgasm and mine didn't, which was fine with me, as it wouldn't have enhanced her pleasure at that moment, it seems.

The next day or two after getting really worked up (it had already been a week) are usually a little difficult and I have to stay focused in order not to get crabby. I'm not sure I entirely succeeded, but I don't think I failed too spectacularly either.

Another Shoe that Sort-of Fits

2009-01-09T08:13:00.001-08:00

After a downer in the last post, I was going to tag this on at the end. But decided it merited a (brief) post of its own.

On the bright side, the last half of Kathy's post on A Quick Note about Mike is so totally about me that it makes me happy to know that someone out there understands me, even if she doesn't know me. Though slightly more galling because she wasn't in to this either but got there by exploring with her husband. (I'll take all her posts at face value, it gets too complicated if one doesn't.)

It does remind me that I'm not very good at this, however. I don't know if I'd be better at it if I were really interacting with my beloved about it, or if I'm just a lazy sot.

I'm Just Playing the Game

2009-01-09T07:15:00.000-08:00

We have some extremely tedious (youthful) house guests lingering from the holidays - long irrelevant story, but it's the right thing to do.

But as a result, everybody's been a little stressed and there certainly hasn't been any time for intimacy on our part, either in the bedroom or out.

A long time ago, as what I've come now to realize that I was regarding as "starter rituals", I suggested that when I arrive home and she's working, I just sit beside her until she's ready to interrupt what she's doing and say hello. It was a hot day in the summer, and she suggested a glass of water too.

So yesterday I arrived and went over to her and she said, "Where's my glass of water?" - it was a moment of moderate pandemonium in the house. I said, "Sorry", and she smiled sweetly and said, "I'm just trying to play the game, here."

Cut me to the quick.

What can I say? I don't appreciate your "playing the game"? It doesn't count if you don't really feel it? Clearly not - she's a saint for "playing along" with me in the desire for me to feel better. I can't make her feel any particular way, I can only hope that she does.

Certainly, recently I haven't been under any illusion that I'm going to start doing things and she's going to wake up one day and say, "Oh, this is kind of fun. I wonder if I can make him do more?" (No thanks to Her Knight's Princess, who seems to have decided just that.)

I think I was hoping that my beloved would find that my service was sort of useful, and that she'd come to expect it, and come to see it as part of our relationship, rather than something she's doing for me.

As it is, the whole thing right now seems kind of akin to a "mercy fuck," only a fuck with my head rather than my body.

It would explain why our little going to bed ritual seems pretty hollow to me - I do it now out of self discipline, rather than because there's any joy in it. I'm not as dumb as I look - I think I pretty well picked up on the fact that it touched the merest surface of her mind and emotions. I think she was genuinely happy early on when I told her how much I appreciated doing it - how good it felt to "be me".

But of course what I've finally realized is that all that "submission" was to myself, not to her. Interesting and profound philosophical questions aside (like to whom can one ever submit, etc), this isn't very satisfying. I can have fantasies lying in bed by myself; does it matter if my beloved is complicit with them? It is certainly better in terms of relationship if she knows about them and if the secret and shame elements are gone.

But fundamentally, if she's just an actor or a walking prop in my fantasy, that's not very satisfying.

It reminds me of when I was a teenager. My parents would go out for the night leaving me by myself, and I would hurry to enact all sorts of submissive fantasies, chiefly motivated by whatever TV show I happened to be watching. I went so far as to get and pin and the rubbing alcohol out, convinced that I was going to pierce my nose that evening. Never did though. But the point is, those were me acting out fantasies that were entirely in my head. Better than nothing? Maybe, especially since, at that age, they always ended in orgasm, which was big news when I was a teenager.

But this exercise seems only a slight advancement from that, with all the good-will that my beloved is putting in to accommodating me.

Sorry to start with such a downer post for the new year. Perhaps things will improve. I sense another conversation in the offing, though I can't exactly figure out how it will evolve... "You're being really nice and doing this thing for me, but it feels like dust in my mouth?" Not very promising...

Too Close for Comfort

2009-01-04T17:21:00.000-08:00

Facing My Obsession, in the Flesh

This isn't exactly me, but it isn't exactly not either. Anyone who's taking the time to write or read a blog like mine, or like those linked on the right needs to read this article and ask themselves some hard questions.

I know I am.

Only you can tell yourself if you're satisfied with your answers.

Housekeeping

2008-12-31T14:41:00.000-08:00

and not the sexy service kind either...

I've had lots of thoughts of things to blog, but things have been very very busy, so I haven't. FLR-wise, things have been pretty quiet as well. In fact, I can't say as I've been of any use at all to her. Or rather, I've been doing more things around the house, but also having a good opportunity to contemplate what relationship "being a dutiful husband" and "being in an FLR" have with one-another.

I think it all has to do with expectations. If I just make the coffee because it's what I do, then there's no buzz to it. If I just pay the bills or empty the cat litter or take care of the animals because it's what I do, then there's no buzz to it. But if I do the most mundane thing - take out the trash, say - because she told me to, then FLR is happening.

What's that about? I think (as Ms. Rika says), it's about accepting service from a position of power. I think it's about wanting to be recognized for who I am. I think it's using every-day things to reinforce the fact that we have this "different" kind of relationship - or that we have a relationship at all.

Now after 20+ years of relatively happily married life, wouldn't you think that I'd know that we have a relationship? I think it's some kind of emotional "deafness" that makes it hard for me to hear that we do have a special relationship, that makes the reinforcements of an FLR important to me. Call if some kind of emotional insecurity, if you will. So possibly it should be addressed other ways (therapy, anyone? - been there, done that, got the canceled checks to prove it - not a bad endeavor, but in the end not one that seemed to get to the root of the issue).

Tidbits:

I like wanting her. That's her giving me permission to love her - her being amused that she's that important to me. I think she got that.

This is more important to me than to her. In fact, the only reason it's important to her is that it's important to me. So my not getting in to bed without her permission in fact, I think, means nothing to her. But it means something to me, and she's would notice if I didn't ask, and she'd know what it meant to me, and so would be displeased. Kind of indirect reasoning, but she doesn't really care for her own sake, but for the sake of the state of mind I'm in.

Why I Ask

2008-12-31T14:34:00.000-08:00

One recent morning, I asked my beloved if I could have an orgasm. This whole "asking for sex" think kind of puzzles her, I think. The part where she gets to set the sexual agenda and say "No" whenever she wants, or say "Yes" and get just what she wants - that part makes sense to her.

The part that I don't think makes sense to her is the "me asking for permission to have an orgasm" part. One recent morning, a different way of explaining it occurred to me. I said,

"Listen, I get my pleasure from serving you. If I don't get to serve you, I'm not having fun." All of which is true, with some caveats.

"Asking for permission to have an orgasm means that I get my sexual pleasure from you as well. If I've been serving you well, and you decide to say 'Yes,' then my pleasure again comes from having served you. And if you say 'No' for any reason, because I haven't been serving you or because you feel like it, I'm obeying you, which is as much fun (or more to be honest) as serving you."

I think she kind of got that, and I think I said it better at the time, which is why I usually like to to write these blog entries sooner after the fact.

Link to a post that says it all

2008-12-28T11:06:00.000-08:00

I happened across Domme Chronicles via a link from someone else's blog - I don't remember whose. But this post says everything I think I could say about rules, why I crave them, and why I so want my beloved to care about all this.

Perhaps it will resonate for you as well.

http://domme-chronicles.blogspot.com/2008/12/no-rules.html

Tough Night

2008-12-18T08:00:00.000-08:00

...and not in a kinky way.

I'm not particularly good at buy presents for people. I have this fantasy that the perfect gift is something you would never have bought for yourself, but which you find you use every day once it's given to you. Last year, I got my beloved a jewelry pin - she doesn't wear much jewelry, but this wasn't a formal piece; it was the kind of casual thing that you could wear on a sweater (which she does wear lots of).

That turns out to have been a mistake, which I only found out about now. She was really upset about it, viewing it as indicative of how little I think about her and who she really is. Time was that I would have tried to rationalize and explain, but this clearly wasn't a moment for that. I just apologized and accepted it - there is, after all, much truth in what she said.

She was also upset at the prospects for this year's gift. She's shared her gift list with me, and I've made sure to get as many items on it as possible. There were also issues about the guest and shopping schedule for this weekend - issues I don't even remember now given that it's ten days later and I'm just finishing this post.

That night I dreamt that she appreciated the fact that I still had my necklace on and that I respected her wishes by not sexually satisfying myself while she was away. But there was no way to share that, particularly with the bad feeling that remained from our conversation.

I really really want her to care about our "arrangement" and I have not sign that she does. Without that, isn't this all in my head? And haven't I written that before? There's not much more to say about that.

While we were happily shopping away, we had one of those misunderstandings that just happens when people are doing stuff together - I thought you were done with that, why didn't you show that to me, etc. She got short and ticked off with me. We worked it out OK, but I want to solve our problems in the context of our arrangement, not have our arrangement be icing on the cake, happening only when it's all going well. Isn't there some way we can do that? Some time, I hope to ask her. Actually, I did start to ask her, and she seemed to be thinking about it, but we got interrupted by kids or telephones or family or something. Tis the season...

What Do I want?

2008-12-11T19:06:00.000-08:00

I was going to title this post "Why can't I get what I want" when I realized the answer: I don't really know what I want.

Or rather, I want different things at different times.

There are times, like yesterday, when I want to be "taken in hand." I'm sorry the submissive-wife crowd have appropriated that phrase, because it describes very much how I feel sometimes: I want my beloved to just use me - practically (stuff around the house), for her own good ends (do stuff for her), and kinky-ly (for her sexual satisfaction and my frustration). At times like that, I'm not thinking critically or particularly maturely about the give-and-take of relationships. I'm not thinking pro-actively, about what I can do to serve her (which is mostly in those practical ways), or even what I can do for her (like foot rubs). There's just this need.

I have some ideas what this need is about. I think is is largely as WhateverSheSays put it in his comment to my last post: I want to feel connected to her and I want to feel wanted.

Other times, I want to just know that she wants me to be submissive to her. Kathy gets this dynamic when she describes how her husband is trained to come to her and kow-tow when she snaps her fingers. She knows that he's submitting to her, and she wants him to know it. And there are times when that's all I want: to know that she wants me to be submissive, to know that she wants me to know that I have no choice but to submit to her.

And then there are times when I just want to do stuff for her - around the house, for her, and for her pleasure. When remembering that she mentioned "We should probably get X done" is enough of a command for me to actually do it, and know that I'm doing it because it was her desire. This last is obviously the place I prefer to be. Although without the occasional scenario just above, I don't think I can stay there.

And when I'm in a funk, I think I get to the first above.

If all this is confusing to me, I can just imagine how confusing it is for my beloved. It's amazing she puts up with me.

But I'm very glad she does.

Rituals and Formulas

2008-12-07T14:35:00.000-08:00

There's something incredibly erotic to me about rituals and formulas - being made to say something or ask for something. So it's funny that the going to bed ritual we've adopted does not involve my asking to go to bed, but just waiting until it's convenient for my beloved to review my performance for the day.

Which she doesn't, really. More like asks me how the day went, which is not very satisfying. The discussion is good, and is the only reason I had the link to WhippedIntoShape's solitary blog entry up for so long: the discussion (and the one we have when I arrive home from work and wait for her pleasure) doesn't end until she decides that it ends.

That in and of it self is rather satisfying.

But I can't help but want some ritual or formula around it. My fantasy of having to ask her if I can come to bed, or being required to refer to it as "her" bed, or including a phrase in my response to "how was your day?" (her preferred and my least preferred opening to this conversation), like "I served you by...". I could of course do this myself, but it she doesn't care, I don't.

The simplistic formulation is that it's all about what she wants, but of course it's really all about her wanting something that will reinforce the reality of my service to her in our relationship in my mind, which in reality may or may not be what she wants.

I think we'll get places on this, though a combination of my asking for what I need, and my being really really patient and not pushing stuff. But that's hard.

Serving her is a privilege

2008-12-07T14:27:00.000-08:00

Yesterday we were apart all day, and by the time we got to bed, it was late, and we would be getting up early. And I've got a whopper of a cold. So the prospect of kneeling by the bed doing whatever it is that that does, seemed kind of odd.

In the event, it didn't matter because she was tired and just wanted an embrace before we went to sleep, and so that's what she directed to have happen.

But that made it occur to me that kneeling by her bed to ask for permission to come to bed is a privilege that I have to earn by, in fact, serving her. And that serving her is, in some sense, a privilege as well, which I would be well advised not to throw away by ignoring it and not doing it.

Today's not looking much better service-wise, mainly because I'm sick. I guess that's real life, so I won't complain about it. But it's frustrating.

She Doesn't Make This Easy

2008-12-07T14:26:00.000-08:00

I've been meaning to write a post about this for a while because it reveals how we are almost tragically working at cross-purposes with each other.

She expects perfection. Wouldn't I not want her to expect any less? Of course. And she knows that. But what it means is that she doesn't nag, she doesn't suggest, she doesn't remind, or even seem to notice. She knows that I know what needs to be done. So if I'm not doing it, it must be because I can't (which is why this is really a post-script to the previous post below...)

So she does what is necessary and waits for me to get to doing what I can. We experienced the real fallout from this when we picked up the pieces over the accounting - I let some things slide for three months, it got a little ugly to fix (all fixed now), and she said that it was adding to her stress level once I had said I would do it but then didn't.

Of course adding to her stress level was the last thing I wanted to do. And I'm trying to be better about that. Hmmm, in fact I ought to be doing the accounting now....

But of course what I wanted was even a "Where are we with the accounting" and a "Go work on it for an hour now, it doesn't matter how tired you are" or "Go work on it now, the rest of us are going to the movies" or something. Perfection is just knowing that it's supposed to be done so it will be done, and my beloved not worrying about it. Which ought to be more fulfilling for me rather than less. I think it would be easier to be like Her Knight and have a "Princess" who corrected me on all the details. At least I'd know she cares.

And my beloved does care, and I do know that, but I have to learn how to hear that emotionally.

Actually, it occurs to me that I just need to learn how to ask for that. Saying things is hard for me, but incredibly satisfying and erotic. So what would happen if I asked her, "Do you care about this arrangement? Do you care about whether I serve you or not?" We'd probably have a really good discussion about it. I may be a little too under-the-weather today, but soon.

Potpourri #2:"Don't beat yourself up about it"

2008-12-07T13:16:00.000-08:00

I really try not to be a brat. I know I don't have to go over the ground about how stupid and self-centered it is to provoke the woman in your life just so that you can know that she is "in charge."

But I am far far from perfect. The other day there was a 25 pound bag of feed that needed to be moved to the animal shed. It was easy to construe things such that I didn't have time to move it, and I didn't. But later that night as she was on her way out the door, she said, "Oh, and I haven't seen to the animals yet." I looked at the work room and noticed that she'd moved it. I said, "Sorry I didn't get to moving the feed." She said, "Don't beat yourself up about it."

My beloved is wonderful. My beloved wants me to come to terms with the life and the commitments I've made and the time we really have to do things. My beloved wants to be supportive.

What I can't figure out how to say, is Do you care about this? Does it make any difference whether I do stuff or not?

I did a double-take - she did, after all, use the word "beat..." But she clarified: "You've got to find a way to do what you can and not beat yourself up about the stuff you can't do." Which is, it is true, a theme in my life, but not one which I want expressed in this context, frankly. But it really did make it clear how she feels about it.

Potpourri #1: Why Being Denied Works

2008-12-05T06:54:00.000-08:00

Since I've been to busy to post anything coherent, I figured I'd catch up on random thoughts before any more of them flee my brain.

Over Thanksgiving

We were at the obligatory relative's house sleeping in (for a change) when one thing led to another (as it so often does in bed...) and my beloved said, "I'm going to cum and you're not." Uhhh. Wow. OK. Not like that's unprecedented or anything, but her thinking about it in advance and saying so certainly is. That was very fun, as I love making her feel good. And I got to have that submissive buzz all day.

But what's more important is the conversation that happened afterwards: "Isn't this the part that would drive most guys nuts?" she asked. In a sudden flash of insight, I realized that the reason I like not reaching orgasm when we have sex is that it gives me permission to desire her. As I've written so many times in the past, there's a lot in this about "permission" for me.

So when I desire her,and orgasm, and lose that immanent desire (lust?), it's like it don't desire her (at least not in the same way) for a while. So when she facilitates that process (by letting me cum), it's like she's saying, "It's not important to me [her] that you desire me." And that's disappointing.

So I told her, not reaching orgasm, wanting her all day, was like having her permission to be in love with her, to desire her. And that is more satisfying than a quick physical pleasure. I was surprised, because I didn't intend to say that, but there it was.

And I think she got it; it was the first formulation of this stuff that made sense to her.

Some Sort of Slow Evolution

2008-12-01T10:24:00.001-08:00

I'm sorry I left the previous post at the top of the blog for so long, because things aren't as dire as all that. And the challenges that face me and my beloved in this process seem to be as much of my making as anything else.

There are weeks when I don't want to do this at all. That's a simple way of saying it, but it's actually much more complicated than that. It's not like "I'm cured!" (that wonderfully ambiguous last line from the movie version of A Clockwork Orange). It's more like I have no desire at all - sexual or for whatever passes for "fun" or much of anything. It's more like being dead (or deadened) than being cured. What it is, actually, is being depressed - I know, I've been there.

(Certainly the economic news doesn't help; certainly the rush of family obligations around the holidays don't help, surely the distraction of the political news doesn't help, but in the final analysis, I think what's going on inside is more important than what's going on outside.)

Normally, though, in the context of a dysfunctional sexuality, that's a good thing, because it means that I'm not lusting after what I can't have - whatever that satisfaction is (or I think would come from) being in a deeply submissive relationship. But now that my beloved and I are exploring what this relationship might be for us, it's very problematical.

I am, for sure, NOT going to say to her, "Could we put this all on hold for a minute, I'm not in to it right now."

No, instead, as a discipline, I kneel beside the bed every night because I'm pretty sure I'm not allowed in without her permission. I do it for my self as a symbol to my self of the fact that I am committed to doing this thing, even on those days when I don't exactly know what "this thing" is, or why I'm doing it, or whether she even cares or notices.

And that minimal level seems to keep things alive enough for me.

No fool, my beloved, she said early on, "What are we going to do when you don't want to do this?" She's known me for a long time. I replied that I hoped that what we were doing was at a sustainable level, even during those times, or even enough to prevent those times from happening. Sure enough, it was the former rather than the latter, but that's by far good enough.

Now desire revives, which I'll take as a lifting of whatever depression was upon me. And a couple of comments by my beloved and a bit of unexpected play from her makes this all very much (and mostly gratifyingly) alive again.

Oddly enough, feels good to be back.

It Just Doesn't Work

2008-10-29T16:13:00.001-07:00

The whole purpose of having a blog for me is to write down stuff I think up so I can remember it later. Here's one of those insights:

It just doesn't work if she doesn't expect me to do stuff.

Here's what I mean: My beloved is a do-er, not a complainer. So it can be my "responsibility" to do the laundry or pay the bills, and if I don't do it (which I don't, or I do it sporadically), she picks up the slack. It's true that the more of these things I do, the less she has to do. I thought that was OK - not in the sense that the slacking was OK, but our relationship has always been cooperative. So if I'm doing as much as I can, it's natural for us, as has been for the last 25 years, for the other person to pick up the slack.

I realize now that this totally doesn't work because it doesn't create any reduction in what she's "responsible" for. In the sense that we're both responsible for keeping the household running. So if I do more stuff, she may do less stuff (or she may find other stuff to do), but the psychological weight of being responsible for getting all the business of running the household done is not reduced.

Let me also say that it's not a matter of my just doing more. It really needs to be an attitudinal shift on her part. Because she works at home. So no matter how much laundry I try to put through the system, she's going to be home when the stuff on the line gets dry, and she's going to be able to fold and put that away and start the next load. Nothing wrong with that per se, except that it means that she's still responsible for the laundry.

[It occurs to me that we could get to a place, once the expectations were right, that her doing the obvious practical thing like the laundry wouldn't do violence to the arrangement. But that depends on where we are and what our attitudes and expectations are. We could get there, but we're not there now.]

The other part of expectations is that it provides a standard by which to judge how good a job I'm doing. I'll make no secret of the fact that I want to be held to account by her and have her exercise her authority over me by assessing how I'm doing and providing or withholding privileges based on that, whether it's something "fun" like orgasm denial, or something un-fun like sleeping on the floor, or something mundane like no desserts or wine, or what. It really doesn't matter. What matters is a connection between what I'm responsible for doing to make her life easier, how well I do those things, and any other mudane part of life where she chooses to exercise her authority.

There are two stages to making this process "real" in my mind: doing something I'd rather not be doing, like being tired and working on the home business or the bills or a chore she's set out. And her assessment of the outcome of my work at some point - good enough or not good enough. It's not so much the reward and the punishment as her ability/authority to provide the reward or punishment. It's not even anything she has to do - just saying that I'm free to have an orgasm or not free to drink or have sweets until such-and-such a time. Those really do fall into the mode of Ms. Rika's quick reenforcements - the positive and the negatives. She need only take the time involved to assess the work and determine the outcome. I'm happy to do all the executing of the reward or punishment. It's the "she cares" part that I crave.

we'll have a long drive (to which she alluded) this weekend perhaps during which we can talk about this stuff. I'm also strongly inclined to show her this blog, because I really don't want there to be any secrets, and this is the last one.

Should be interesting.

Working the Ground

2008-10-01T14:07:00.000-07:00

Last night we had a long car ride. I can't tell you the number of these car rides over the years that have passed in tortured silence as I thought over what I really wanted to say, about how I wanted whatever the fantasy of the moment was. THe vast majority of the time, unless we were in one of our handful of episodes of trying to work something out, those car rides passed in silence.

Last night was headed in the same direction, since I'm very sensitive to the argument, "All you ever talk about is this stuff." But thinking about "this stuff" got me started thinking about how couples deal with conflict, and whether we argue more or less than other couples in long relationships. So we talked about that, but then moved on to how couples handle conflict, and whether we argue less because we're both conflict averse.

At which point there was a silence and I *had* to bring this up in the context of a power exchange relationship, which is what I think this is. I suggested that having a very structured way of dealing with disagreement would allow us, as two conflict averse people, to deal with disagreements rather than push them under the surface, since they would imply conflict. I really hadn't intended to go there, but in all honesty, if we're actually doing this, felt that I had to.

And it was a great discussion. My beloved said things like

I don't want to just decide things, I want to hear what you have to say around them.
I don't want to ask for your opinion if it doesn't count

I said things like

I give you my best input; you take it in to account; you decide

She brought up a large house-hold task that hasn't been done because there are about three different solutions to the problem. "I want it to happen this way," she said. We didn't nail that down (although I internally acquiesed) as we set about dinner and other reasons for our trip.

Arriving at the restaurant, she looked at the specials and said, "You could have that..." Feeling uninhibited, I said that one of my long term fantasies was for her to order meals for me. I don't know why. I don't even really "care" about it the way I care about the big dynamics of our relationship. I just think it would be fun.

She just laughed and looked at me and said, "I just think you're a woman incarnated in the wrong body." I just said that it was nice to able to say this stuff even if it wasn't important.

During our nightly talk, she asked, "So what about that large house-hold task." I said, "As you wish" and that I just hadn't fit that into the conversation earlier. After she was done with our conversation and invited me to bed, I pointed out that I haven't been offering back rubs or foot rubs because the offering seemed to annoy her. But I had made that observation before she's come to enjoy the foot rubs.

She "interviewed her feet" and allowed me to rub them until she turned out the light. That was very fun. My beloved is very good to me.

Over the course of the evening, I had wondered, "What could she do that would make me really believe this is happening?" Then I realized that the right question was, "What could I do to make her believe this is really happening." A question I thought I might ask her. And then I realized that the right answer to that question was to do the little things, over and over, and to let her know how much I enjoy doing them, and to acknowledge and thank her for the things she does for me. Less dramatic, longer, harder, but in the end I suspect, more effective. I got a little taste of that reward today:

The IM conversation went like this:

Her: I prepped food X for dinner. Can you cook them or will that take to long?
Me: I think it will work
Her: Good, let's do that. And you'll get milk.
Me: As you wish

Life's small pleasures.

She is wonderful, my beloved

2008-09-29T23:06:00.000-07:00

She is wonderful, my beloved.

Monday, after I wrote the preceding post, it was bed time.

I went up and we did our normal thing, with me kneeling beside the bed waiting for her to find a convenient moment to talk. Truth be told, I don't remember what we talked about - a hazard of writing these posts some time after the fact. But I'm pretty sure I said that a day in which things conspired so that I didn't get to say "As you wish" or "My pleasure" more than once or twice wasn't a great day in my book. Not complaining, just communicating as we try to figure out what will work in our lives.

Much to my surprise, she invited me to pleasure her sexually (which is the best way to describe it - much fore-play and manual stimulation for her, her orgasm, and her decision as to whether she wants me in her or not, which she does based on whether it would enhance her pleasure at the moment. In the event, it was late and she turned off the light. I thanked her for the fore-play and the whole event, which I very much do enjoy, and we went to sleep. I, a very happy camper. And from the sounds of things, my beloved a happy camper as well.

My beloved is wonderful to me.

What Would Be Different If...

2008-09-29T19:11:00.000-07:00

I think somewhere back in this blog, I mentioned an insightful question my beloved asked me many years ago when we were poking around the issues of my submission. She asked, "How would today have been different if you had been my slave" (the terminology we were using at the time. I was stymied for an answer.

Today was one of those days. So far, today, it's hard for me to say what would have been different. One little interaction on IM, which I closed with an "As you wish" instead of "Sure, be right there." A little interaction over dinner as to who was eating what. And perhaps just a moment ago when I offered her a taste of what I had been cooking and she ate almost all of it. That latter being perhaps the only sign from her.

Yes, I did a couple of things I might otherwise not have done - laundry, chores - but nothing that a considerate spouse shouldn't have done, though he mightn't have.

Another vivid dream last night, which I've put off writing about long enough that I don't remember it clearly. My ex-sister-in-law, who is gay, mentioned something about "those of use who are secure in our sexuality" and looked pointedly at me and said, "and I'm including you in that group..." and we had a positive discussion (in the dream), which I don't remember. But the affect of the whole thing was very positive, which for me is a really important way I assess dreams.

Last night due to kid homework, we got to bed very late, so she just patted my side of the bed and said, "It's late, why don't you come to bed." It is her prerogative not to be in to this on any given evening. But I woke in the morning jonesing for something submissive. So by no choice of our own, it's not my prerogative not to want it - I'm stuck with it. Nothing to be done for that, though.

Busy week to come, we'll see how it evolves.

New Foundations

2008-09-28T18:36:00.001-07:00

Last night I had a dream I think - hope - choose to believe - is worth remembering.

The first term paper I ever wrote, in 6th grade, was about a large 18th century building in the town where I grew up. Last night I dreamt that I was walking around the site of that building, and it had been excavated all the way down to the foundation - practically disassembled, in fact. And down below the building they had discovered and unearthed a series of brick barrel vaults that were holding up the whole building.

The challenge was to preserve the here-to-for unknown foundational structure of the building while rebuilding for the future. [There were other elements of the dream, but they are now muddled in that dream sort of way. Perhaps they'll become clearer and relevant...]

I chose to see this as metaphor for my relationship to my beloved. Last night as we were driving home from my sister-in-law's house, I realized that this whole venture is going to me much more challenging than I thought. I'm used to picking things up and being fairly good at them - doing "things" is not that much of a challenge for me.

But re-imagining my own state of mind, and learning how to "live" a submissive relationship, rather than fantasizing about one, is a challenge. Even in the face of practical and non-fantasy advice like that in Ms. Rika's book and at the She Makes The Rules web site.

Those of us who read blogs (like this one, and like the ones I read) may be doing ourselves a disservice. It's so easy to read about someone else's relationship and think, "That's what I want" or "My relationship would be perfect if it just included that thing that they did." But the only relationship I can live is the relationship with my beloved. That relationship can be informed by what I read, can be improved by what i read, and to the extent that I read examples of behavior that don't work out, I can view them as cautionary tales, and to the extent that I read examples of things I think could work, I may be spared some trial and error. But the interior emotional reality must be my reality, constructed jointly by me and my beloved, not the emotional realty of what I read and what I fantasize.

Which is why I suspect I will ask my beloved to read this blog - if the "inputs" are the same, there is more likelyhood that our realities will converge, and that will work well for both of us.

Walking around this morning, I realized how deeply this affects my daily and minute-by-minute existance.

Honestly, I don't know if I'm asking my beloved for this dyanmic to have that much importance in her life. There is no doubt in my mind that I would like it to. But I'm not going to ask her to change, nor to restructure her world any more than necessary (and for better or for worse, some restructuing is necessary, as I mentioned in my last post - I'm not the person she's spent the last 25 years living with).

But I realized how deeply - to the foundations - this change affects me when I was on my buisness trip last month. Looking out the window as we were landing, I realized that I didn't have the breathless sense of anticipation that I've come to expect over the last 35 years of traveling. Traveling for me has always had the implicit promise that in a new city, in a new country, on a new continent, I would magically find who I am, find a place to fit in. I can't tell you how many night's I've walked the streets of how many cities looking for that last puzzle piece to fit in my emotional make-up. And, of course, never found it.

Landing this time, I realized that I've found it. Or I've found a real way to work on it, doing this relationship work with my beloved. And my attitude towards my trip was completely different: I'd rather be home (and in fact, I postponed this trip once for that very reason). And as a result, I think I worked harder and was more productive on this trip than I've been in many years.

I shared this with my beloved and she's referred to it several times since. And also reminded me that many years ago, I told her that I liked walking the streets of cities I was working in, looking at all the people, wondering what their lives were like, wishing I could be them. And that I don't feel I need to do that anymore. I think that touched her.

Service Recently

2008-09-28T18:35:00.001-07:00

Since our conversation, I've tried to be particularly attentive to her oblique requests and suggestions. Tiny things, like "what would it take to do that bathroom project" (that has been sitting around for six months). Being mindful of "As you wish" and "My pleasure." Those are still hard and I'm far from perfect at them.

There have been a couple of fun things recently. I was crashing on a project at work and needed her to do something on my home computer in order to finish it. She hates my home computer password and IM'ed back: "Please change your password to something I can remember." "As you wish..." "Like xxxx" "As you wish..."

So now every time I sign on to my computer, I get to type the password she assigned me. For those of us in need of reenforcement, that's very satisfying.

There have been other opportunities to serve as well. Yesterday was pretty much all projects she had in mind, including an early wake-up to get kids to where they were going, laundry, a long-deferred home improvement project, and, late in the day, an "I'm going to run an errand. Come with me." That was satisfying.

Along the way in there I asked her to remove the gold chain I wear so I could relieve some sexual tension myself, and she told me when she wanted it back on. Later, she changed her mind and told me she wanted to replace the chain far earlier than she had originally said. I commented on this to make sure I hadn't misunderstood originally, and she said, "I know, I changed my mind." That was encouraging.

Earlier on in the week she allowed me to give her a foot rub after we had our bed-time talk. That was really fun, especially as she was relaxing in to sleep as I did so, and I was pretty tired. Following up on one other blogger's experience (AAT?), I took the liberty of planting one kiss on each foot when she told me I could "wrap up."

I also suggested removing her rather elderly toenail polish one morning this week, which she allowed me to do. Great fun there.

So overall, on a day to day basis, I guess things are encouraging. I'm certainly still trying to achieve a balance between what I need in terms of reenforcement. And I'm still searching for a little more feedback from my beloved as to what works for her.

It's also interesting to understand what I give up in this arrangement - the little things perhaps more interesting than the big things. I special-ordered a video from our local video store this week. I didn't ask my beloved about this, and so have never had time to watch the video. It's not that she said, "No", it's that there have been too many other things for me to do for her. If we had planned this together, it would have been something she wanted to do, or we wouldn't have done it. And we/she would have made time for us to see it together. But since it was my project, it just didn't happen.

Frankly, right now, I probably could have said, "I'd like to watch this movie" and she would have said, "Fine." Which I would find discouraging. So, on the "Never ask a question you don't want to know the answer to", theory, I just didn't ask.

What We Really Meant?

2008-09-28T18:30:00.000-07:00

Every night, I kneel at my beloved's bedside, after she's gotten comfortable, and wait for her to get to a point where she wants to talk about how my service has been that day, and how my submission to her is working, and to a lesser extent, how she is feeling about it.

It as during one of these discussions - which often happen too late at night to be truely useful, but are way way better than not having them - that she mentioned that she was "just renting" and, a subsequent night, asked me how long I preferred to kneel there to compose my thoughts (as I indicated to her would be useful at one point). Which totally "broke" it for me.

The following night, I just asked her if I could get in to bed, and did. I mentioned that I thought we needed to talk about what that whole ritual means.

Much to my surprise, several (two? three?) times in the following days, she asked when we were going to talk about it. And with our busy family life, the moment didn't come until unexpectedly on Monday night, both of our kids were at activities and we were facing eachother of ther dinner table.

We talked.

Here it is Sunday, and I'm just getting around to writing that down, which means I've forgotten most of what we said.

How having that conversation be about "how was your day?" does not work for me; that's not what it's about
How I can't remember how we got to this ritual, but if it doesn't mean anything to her, then it doesn't mean anything to me
About how it's not how long it takes for me to reflect and get centered, it's about when she wants to have the conversation.
About my fantasy that some day she'll just decide I should sleep on the floor - not acknowledging me or not inviting me to bed
About how, on the day that I asked her if I could go upstairs and she said yes, but then didn't come up for a long time, I got a pillow and blanket and went to sleep, or dozed, waiting for her. And she felt that this was a rebuke, I said quite the opposite: it was an acknowledgement that I would do what I needed to do, and she can come to bed on whatever schedule works for her - she needn't worry about me.
About how asking me "what have you done for me today" as part of the nightly formula is difficult for her. I asked her if that could be her "growing edge" since, (thought I didn't put it this way), I'd like to encourage her sense of entitlement to my service. Which doesn't me she can't appreciate it. In fact, not appreciating it now, or not expressing that appreciation, is one of the problems - one of the things that makes me feel ignored or like I'm doing this as a "one person fantasy" in which she's a passive but acknowleged and acquiescing actor.
I appreciated her strong statement that this is not just my fantasy and she is just a prop in it. She strongly said that to do so would be intellectually and emotionally dishonest of her - another shining example of her incorruptible integrity, which in this case forces her to engage in this pursuit with me, even though it's not her preference.
I acknowledged that I erred in suggesting that I prefer a certain amount of time to compose myself, and we became explicit (I hope) that it's about when she's ready to talk, not when I've completed some process.
How much I like the aspect of this ritual and the "coming home" ritual (which only works out about once a week, but that's OK), where the conversation has 100% of my attention until she decides she's done - similar to "Whipped into Shape"s solitary post.
How I really don't intend to "not do things" so that she can complain, but that in reality, it would dishonest of me to claim that this would never happen. And perhaps we need a better way of communicating when I feel I need feedback - I called it the "I need a cookie" moment after the Seasame Street bit, and the web browser's use of cookies.
About how this is so similar to many aspects of spiritual paths. It requires surrender on my part: surrendering the fantasy I had, surrendering the wilfulness that says "I want to do this now" (but still have some fantasy relationship), surrendering joyfully to her.
Mindfulness is another spiritual practice I'm bad at. Really saying "As you wish" when I'm doing things because she asked or suggested. And saying "My pleasure" rather than you're welcome when she thanks me for what I've done - as she does. Both of those she said were useful to her because they give her a sense of where my head's at.
About how much I appreciate being made to do the hard things - how fulfilling it is to be dead tired after our talk and have her say, "You can rub my feet now" - which I'll do until she says stop.

Net net - we agreed to continue trying this. I say that rather than "try this again" because it is a continuous process; we'll get it righter and less right as time goes on. But as long as she's egaged in it with me, we are doing to together and it is our process.

Just Renting

2008-09-06T12:08:00.000-07:00

So the veil has dropped. Last night as we were talking, I asked my beloved if she was at all invested in this arrangement of ours. This came up because I don't feel like I have enough discipline to do this well without some input from her, and I don't feel like I'm getting that input.

Her reply was that she wasn't interested in doing this if it was just another way for me to feel bad about myself, which I very much appreciated. And reiterated the theme - I think a good one - that there has to be a way to provide feedback and interaction around this that does not just involved "you didn't do this well enough."

That's what I think I like so much about HerKnight's blog - his Princess clearly is in to it, and is not just satisfied to passively receive service.

If it was just about "service," then I wouldn't need any relationship involved in this. There's something about the structure of the thing that I find very satisfying. Long ago, my beloved mentioned, "You should have been in the Army or something" in response to this need for structured relationships - a comment she says she doesn't recall. And an ironic one give my problems with authority - simultaneously another story and one that is probably relevant.

But it's true - if it wasn't about relationship, all these submissive men out there would just be very successful personal assistants to rich powerful people and be doing fairly well themselves to boot. Or they'd be butlers, etc. And the reason that's not satisfying is because there's no relationship involved. Or in the terms of my previous post, the object of the service just doesn't care or doesn't notice.

The Remains of The Dayis one of the most affecting movies that I've ever seen, because it illustrates what total service - to the extent of total denial of self - can turn in to. Anthony Hopkins' character (the butler) is totally unable to separate his service to his household from himself - even to the extent that, when he finally has the opportunity late in life, he can't express his love. While that's not me, there are elements of the movie - particularly in terms of service - that I find very affecting.

"Is that who you want to be?" asked my beloved? I said, "Of course not. Though there is something very affecting about the film and Hopkins' character." She asked if there were any other movies I could think of that were instructive, and I immediately said, "No," because I know if I had them in mind, I would immediately know what they were.

She suggested "Secretary" (Maggie Gyllenhaal & James Spader) and I said that I need to see it again - it was far to hot on the first viewing for me to be able to evaluate critically. The fact that the power-exchange relationship works for them, but works to help Gyllenhaal's character avoid her self-destructive behavior made my beloved say, "Then if that's relevant, we go with the 'psychological issues' approach to this." That was a little disheartening.

I suggested that every relationship is a shared fantasy - we build the rules and expectations of our relationships as we live them. And the more we invest in an relationship and a way of being, the more the fulfillment or non-fulfillment of our expectations becomes important. So that, even though all these ideas of "service" mean relatively little to my beloved, over time, with the investment in our relationship "being" this way, they acquire their own value.

That's when she mentioned that she's not investing in this aspect of our relationship, she's just renting.

And that was pretty disheartening.

I think I've put aside my fantasy for today - and that's what it now appears to me as to what's been happening: she's been very accommodating about my indulging in my fantasy, believing whatever I need to believe to be happy, but not sharing in, investing in, building, that fantasy which I believe is the basis of *any* relationship.

Instead, she's got a great deal of investment in the fantasy of the last 24 years of marriage and 15 years of relationship before that. Only, despite the occasional peeks out from under the covers, that fantasy wasn't all of me - ahh, that's why that movie, and particularly its theme song are so very affecting to me.

And I certainly was complicit in building that not-quite-all-of-me fantasy - I mislead the investor, so to speak. So I guess it's largely my responsibility. Sounds like material for a Dan Savage column, and not a line of reasoning that's going to go any place satisfying anytime soon.

I don't know what happens next.

What Says, "Submission"?

2008-09-03T11:56:00.001-07:00

Yesterday, I

* Made the coffee
* Did a couple of loads of laundry (sorted, washed, hung to dry, folded)
* Got a car problem checked out
* Did the grocery shopping
* Cooked dinner (quite the gourmet meal, I might add...)
* Took care of the animals
* Worked on the bill paying
* Gave my beloved a back- and foot-massage

I didn't

* Check that her wallet had money in it
* Finish doing the dishes
* Turn on her light in the evening
* Set out her vitamins
* Find and set her handbag where it belongs.

Did she care? I don't know.

Did I enjoy it? Sort of. I hate paying bills and I suspect I do it more slowly than she does, which I suspect she finds frustrating. Back-rubs are a discipline because I get to do them so seldom that I'm not sure I'm good at them. Feet, no problem.

Did she enjoy the time I freed up? Not really, I don't think. She's not one to loll about, although I think she's getting better at deciding to plop down and read a book when she wants to. But last night she used it to work.

Was there any overt indication that I was doing this for any reason other than the "dutiful husband?" No.

Over on BeingHerNight.blogspot.com, Her Knight talks about being required to exercise "Active Submission" - being proactive in doing the things he thinks his Princess might enjoy. She, on the other hand, has included among the things she enjoys, little pieces of dialog like "My Princess, may I wear a tie for you today?" And I get the impression from his blog that there are other moments like this through the day that explicitly acknowledge the power dynamic of their relationship.

I crave that kind of dialog.

It's been interesting identifying the kinds of things that say "I am in control; you have submitted to me" to various men in FLRs. A quick list (in no particular order), would be

* Orgasm control
* Cross-dressing
* Wearing women's underwear
* Doing domestic chores

There seem to be men who focus more or less strongly on one or more of these. But for me, it is the simple acknowledgment that she is in control. I crave bits of dialog like "You'd like to come right now, but you can't unless I allow you." Or "I'm going to go watch a video, enjoy cleaning the kitchen." Or "Are you tired? You know you can't go to bed until I'm ready." Or anything else that explicitly says that she's in control. Having figured this out, I guess we'll have to talk about it.

She doesn't make this easy - her "demands" are couched so subtly. I know that this is a character thing, and I'm not going to try to change it, but it does make it more difficult. It's easy to forget a "I guess it's about time to change the sheets" unless I explicitly rewrite it in my head to "You have to change the sheets tomorrow." But if I'm doing the rewriting, to what extent is this any different from all the years I just fantasized about stuff. To what extent are *we* doing something, and to what extent am I just being explicitly allowed to live a little fantasy.

Scary thought. More food for conversation.

P.S. A post-trip update needed just to catch up to where we are; that's yet to come. And no, I didn't indulge in any of the fantasies in my last post. But I was on the road, and that's what they were, fantasies.

Service, Supportiveness, Expectations, and "Being good enough"

2008-08-24T13:44:00.001-07:00

So I'm on the road. I get to have my fantasies. Based on my beloved's comments at our last check-in, I fantasize the following:

How about if at our check-in, it is my responsibility to list all the things I'm supposed to do for her today. And because it's my fantasy, I get to say that it's only the non-regular-household stuff that get's listed. Or maybe that stuff get's listed in a separate category, like "being a good husband." [Of course, reflection reveals that these categories aren't as different as they might seem, but I think I'd still distinguish them as below, as a first cut.]

It's just the kind of ritual that I think I like - and might actually hate. And, I'm learning, might actually have trouble doing with a straight face. Unless she cares about it. But wait, that's getting ahead of myself.

I wonder how she would react to a formula like the following:

When you let me serve you, it means to me that you love me, and that's important to me. I appreciate it that you let me

Paint your toe-nails
Shave your legs
Trim your hair
Check-in with your after work
Meet you when you arrive home
Give you foot rubs
Give you back rubs
Recite this list for you every night
Get your permission before going to bed

Thank you for letting me ... whatever it was that she let me do, personal service wise, that day. On days when that's nothing, I guess I'd say the honest thing, which is "I'm sorry there was nothing I could do for you, but thank you for expecting me to do this ritual; it's important to me."

That's a good moment to bring up things like: "I'd like to paint your toenails soon; I think they need it" or "I'd like to shave your legs soon, I think they need it." The point of that is to address what's happened occasionally recently: I don't suggest those kinds of things in a timely enough manner, and she does them when she decides they're needed. To me, that's an "I screwed up" moment, and I really really need to know that she cares about them. Not necessarily in a "You need to come here right now and do that" kind of way (which I'd love, but what if I'm out), but in a "I'm disappointed you're more in to your fantasy than the reality of this" kind of way.

I don't think I've written about the idea of not being allowed to come to bed, but being required to sleep on the floor at her side of the bed. The kind of thing that sounds trememdously sexy but would become tremendously tedious in about 1/2 hour, I think. Since that consequence would so quickly follow the night-time disclosure, I would love to try it. I mentioned it to my beloved, and she explicitly wasn't repulsed by the idea, but if she were ever to actually do it, I'd be stunned.

The second half of the evening's recitation would go:

As an attentive husband, you have the right to expect that I will make your life as easy as I can by making it so you don't have to worry about routine things like

Making coffee in the morning
Making sure your cell phone is charged
Making sure your wallet has money it in
Making sure the random receipts are out of your wallet
Paying the bills
Taking out the trash
Doing the dishes
Caring for the animals
Putting our your vitamin
Doing the laundry
Making sure the floors are swept
Making sure the counters are clean
Making sure the cars are maintained
Mowing the lawn

I know the following need to be done, and I'm planning to do them on...

Is there anything you noticed today that I should have done, or anything you did today that you'd rather not have had to?

And at that point, we get to have the conversation about our days.

I'd love for her to attach a consequence to failure - either things I should have done or things she had to do. Things I should have done(or things she did, some of them): do (or re-do) them now, before coming to bed, for example. Or not-being-able-to-come-to-bed time. Or anything. Anything that says, "We're doing this and I care enough to want to motivate you to do better."

This whole thing is a psychological drama, I know, and writing this post reminds me that one of my psychological prime-movers is "Not good enough." And this all plays with that dynamic in, I think, a positive way, because it's acknowledged and explicit, as it has never been before. If, as I intellectually but not emotionally believe, I am in fact "good enough" I'm hoping that playing with this dynamic will get me to a place where I do emotionally believe that. I'm not sure how, I'm not sure what would happen to all this if I got there. But this feels like a way of finding out.

On the Road Again....

2008-08-24T11:05:00.001-07:00

No, I didn't kill my blog, and no, we didn't give up on our WLM. I'm just went on the road for a couple of weeks. But the weeks prior to that were kind of interesting, and being on the road always gives me time to reflect, so here's where I think I am.

First off, my beloved asked me what we should do in the time I'm away. I pointed out that I'm still wearing the necklace, and that means what it means (see this post if you're new to the story). But that beyond that, I couldn't think of much. I suppose - I know - if she had suggested something, I would have lept at it. But it seems pointless to me to say "It would mean a lot to me if you could arrange it so that it meant a lot to you for me to ..." What means a lot to her means a lot to her, and I think there are only very limited ways in which we can grow towards a more satisfying collection of things that mean a lot to both of us.

That having been said, I think we have some opportunities to refine our communication in ways that will benefit both of us. Our nightly "check ins" have devolved into "how was your day." Which is still very satisfying, and reminiscent of the so-far solitary post at the nascent Whipped Into Shape blog. And is particularly satisfying when she leaves me kneeling beside the bed while she finishes whatever it is that she's doing - but which has only happened for about 30 second or so - but what a 30 seconds of contemplation they were.

I've been on the road a week now, and the leaving was somewhat hectic, but one detail I remember from our last check-in could have knocked me over with a feather: I was talking about how I didn't feel like I'd been living up to my commitments to her, and she alluded to how she has been bringing things in from the car when she arrives home - one of the things I said I'd do for her.

It turns out that this was as much from a lack of communications on our part as anything else. She said, "I don't know whether to tell you to come over when I arrive home, or what. I just figured you were busy." I've said before, and I'll say again, that I do not intend to be one of those submissives who falls down on his responsibilities just to see if my beloved is paying attention. But what I did respond with was, "Gee, I didn't think that you thought about this during the day. I still have this impression that the entire arrangement is distasteful to you and you want to put it out of your head." To which she replied, "No, I think about it occasionally during the day."

Holy smokes. There's lots to work with there.

In the doldrums

2008-08-08T10:38:00.000-07:00

Well, it is summer, so I guess doldrums aren't too unusual. But they're still not fun.

Thanks for suggestions about how to approach my beloved in this "getting home late" issue. In the event, the question never happened and the conversation never happened, but for a modestly encouraging reason.

I called her on the phone to ask about this as she was going to leave before I got home, and as I was working up to the question - which I think was going to be along the lines of #5 below - "Can I go to bed before you arrive?", she said, "I don't have time to talk to you now. Goodbye."

She refers to this as "mean, arbitrary capriciousness." I'm thrilled. It's the second time she's done something like that, and I'm working to convince her that it isn't "mean." But as a "good girl", I'm pretty sure that anything that sounds to her like putting her own needs first (or even recognizing her own needs before the pain becomes extreme) feels "arbitrary and capricious" or even "mean" to her. She said, "if we do this, you're going to see more the mean side of me." I'm encouraging her to do more of that, not because I want her to be mean and capricious, but because I think she really needs to explore getting her needs met, and doing so will give me more of an opportunity to serve her.

I know that "mean" wouldn't work in the long run, but if we have to pass through "mean" for her to find herself, I can be very patient with that.

And though I don't think I'd be able to stand "thoughtless and capricious", I think I'd love "teasing [and I don't necessarily mean sexually] and capricious" or any kind of "I'm-in-a-relationship-with-you-but-I-get-to-do-what-I-want-and-you-love-it capricious" - basically, any kind of capricious that acknowledges that we're in a relationship characterized by power exchange.

That all being said, thinks are pretty low right now, wife-led-marriage-wise.

Yes, I'm doing what I'm doing.

But I think our evening ritual needs to be fine-tuned because I, for one, am not getting enough sleep, and neither, I think, is she. This is something to do with going to bed late (duh!), which I fear is motivated by not wanting to talk about the WLM. Which makes me really tired, which makes it hard to do this. If I were cynical, I'd say she was doing it so we'd fail; if I were deluded, I'd say she's doing it to make it harder for me so I can prove that I really want to do this. But I actually think it's avoidance.

And I'm realizing that without some input from her acknowledging that we're doing this, and having that acknowledgment be part of everyday life, I don't think I can do this. Gee, sounds like At All Times and Jane from SheIsInCharge. Gee, are we back to Give the Dog a Bone?

Or maybe I just need to get more exercise and a couple of good nights' sleep.

How Complicated We Make Things

2008-08-05T11:35:00.000-07:00

So she's going to be out tonight. And I don't get to come to bed until she invites me in. Do I

Not mention anything and just hang around the living room until she gets back
Not mention anything and just go to bed
Not mention anything and sleep on the floor until she arrives
Say something casual like, 'Should I wait up for you?'
Say something explicit like 'May I go to bed before you arrive?'

Numbers 2 and 3 seem manipulative to me, so they're out.

Number 5 risks the "rolling her eyes and 'give it a rest'" type reaction. But it also is the honest explicit question, and does give her the opportunity to say "Yes" or "No" clearly, and gives me the opportunity to submit to whichever she says (which I know would be "yes" and I'd be disappointed - that's my challenge).

Number 1 seems the worst - no opportunity for her to 'disappoint' me by saying 'Yes, go to bed', but no opportunity to say that this is not a game and we're actually doing something. The cowards way out, I think.

Number 4 is the low-risk way of asking. But I think too "low risk" - if she says "Nah, don't bother" then I have no idea if she's acknowledging this WLM power exchange thing or not.

So after writing all this, I'm leaning towards number 5. Stay tuned.

In other news, last night she let me rub her feet. Yippee. It was very fun. She was reading and we were talking (philosophy of science, if you must know). Not kinky, not excessively "subby" as she likes to put it. Just fun. I did let her know that I would enjoy doing this any time. I was stunned when she asked. No time limit, just as long as she wanted. I forget what she said when she was done, but it was nice being in the space where I would have just gone on doing that.

Oh, and she asked me what I wanted for my birthday. In the past, I've always fantasized about something kinky - being denied sex for a few weeks and orgasm as birth present, or a chastity belt, or getting pegged, etc. Knowing that this could never ever happen. Now that it could, I was kind of speechless. I don't have a specific "stuff" that I want, but I don't know what kind of "kink" I'd ask for if she felt she wanted to give it to me as a present. I did acknowledge this to her. Still don't know what, if anything I'll ask for.

Life is good.

Work and Play

2008-07-31T06:47:00.000-07:00

There seem to be two kinds of activities in our arrangement: things that my beloved has been doing that make our household run, and things that I can do for her. I've mentioned this before, I know. But now that we've been living with our arrangement for a while, I want to reflect just a little on them.

Prominent among these reflections is wondering what in fact the distinction is between a hen-pecked husband and service-oriented wife-led marriage. Distressingly little, it seems to me. As far as I can tell, the sine-qua-non that distinguishes them is the woman's acknowledgment of the arrangement and her communication of that to her husband. I'm sure these two sides of the balance have been juxtaposed before, but I don't recall having seen that in a post.

To be clear: Unless she explicitly agrees "Yes, we're doing this," and unless the couple together comes up with ways of communicating to the husband, "You're doing this because we're in a wife-led marriage", then I don't think one can distinguish a WLM from a hen-pecked husband.

Wow - I'm not prone to absolute statements, and I certainly wouldn't defend that one to the death, but without those two things, it's hard for me to imagine how this could work in the long term.

So the fact that I'm paying bills at 11:00 at night, when I'd rather be reading or sleeping is work. Doing the laundry at 7:00 in the morning is work. Both become play when/if/were-she-to acknowledge that that's why I'm doing it.

Frankly, I can't make any useful progress on the question of why I shouldn't just be doing these things regardless, just to be a considerate spouse. I can see no logical reason why I should get "service" credit for doing these things, when they just need to be done. To her credit, when I mentioned this yesterday during our evening check-in (me kneeling by the bed before being given permission to enter - favorite moment of my day - how pathetic is that?) my beloved said, "You're doing this so I don't have to, and that counts for me." I guess I'll take that.

How will I know that we've "gotten there?" - to a WLM? OK, I acknowledge that it's all about process. VeezKnight said it better than I could, over on She Makes The Rules (though the link to the posting won't come up unless you have an account - get one, it's worth it). But I'll know that we're walking down this road when my beloved says to me, "Why didn't you ..." during one of our nightly check-ins. Or "You need to ..." about something I haven't gotten to. Basically, when the expectation is there, and there's a consequence for not meeting the expectation.

And frankly, we're getting there. Sunday night, I was exhausted and I thought I had covered all the bases when a voice rang out from the bathroom: "Hey, where's my vitamin?" Oops. I'm supposed to do that. But she bought my silver-tongued excuse about being tired.

And then we were on the phone while she was out of town; I was eating dinner. Sometimes our conversations are good and sometimes they're strained. Strained, in this case. Which she finished off by something like "I don't want to be listening to you chew, goodbye." It was kind of peevish and I was a little ticked off. Next morning she called to apologize (that was nice), and said "If you're asking me to be capricious, you're probably going to get some 'mean' as well." Could have knocked me over with a feather: She was thinking about this. First time I can remember that happening (which is maybe why I need to blog more often).

I said that was totally OK, and reiterated it last night at our nightly check-in: distinguishing "mean" from "capricious" and learning how to do what she's comfortable with is going to be a task for her; she's always been the "please others" sort. I told her I was happy to be part of that process and if it seriously wasn't working over the long term, we'd talk about it. I hope (and think) she took that to heart.

The challenge for me: last night I said I was coming to bed, and she said she'd be in shortly. But she got involved in a movie. I wasn't going to bug her by going back and saying "What about me, I'm exhausted." Inspired, perhaps, by Her Knight, I thought to myself, "This is what you wanted. She's doing what she wants to do and you're waiting for her convenience." So I sat on the floor beside the bed and dozed for a half hour until she came to bed. And thanked her for doing so. She seemed a little ambiguous over whether she decided watching the whole rest of the movie would have brought her to bed too late, or whether she was concerned about me. But I think that means she thought about it and decided that I could wait. If that's true, that's wonderful.

So what do I need? Isn't that that constant refrain of the submissive husband trying to seduce his wife into a WLM? Acknowledgment and communication. And, as I read this, we do seem to be getting there.

It's all about the journey. Right.

What's Possible?

2008-07-22T10:07:00.000-07:00

I love AAT's blog SheIsInCharge for its unstinting look at the successes and challenges of bring and FLR into an existing marriage. In "Despite much advice and discussion", he talks about the frustrations of feeling half-way to an FLR - much satisfying activity in the bedroom and occasional expressions of FLR outside the bedroom, but nothing consistent enough to feel satisfying to him.

I'm afraid I left him a rather flip comment about his ambiguity as to what is enough, but thought that he deserved a fuller comment.

Over at subservire - Diary of a Female-Led Husband, subservire has given up on an FLR. While the whole story isn't relevant here, his valedictory post (with comments, here) is worth a read.

And now I find that I'm in an ambiguous place with the FLR my beloved and I are exploring. I think there are common themes from all three of these things. I hope I can find them.

Regarding AAT's sense that whatever is happening is not enough, I think that we who are pursuing FLRs are doing so for some reason - a reason that isn't, I think, directly related to the FLR itself. The way I characterize it is that we're trying to scratch some itch. The "Female superiority" crowd deals with this by asserting that there's an objective reality that says that women are superior to men, so FLRs would be the natural order of things - it has nothing to do with they themselves. Maybe that works for them, it doesn't work for me, so I can't go there.

For me, we're trying to build relationships that work. I need to serve my beloved for a number of reasons, some of which I understand and some of which I don't. But honestly, it's about how I feel. Total contrary to the "ideology" of the FLR but true. If it were all about how my beloved felt, we wouldn't be doing this at all.

So what makes me feel better? Her allowing me to serve her. Her telling me what to do. Her wanting me to be lusting after her.

How does she know that these things make me feel better? If I don't tell her, there's no way. But if doing these things is offensive to her, then we have a problem. If doing these things is a chore for her, then, as someone who wants me to be happy, she'll indulge in them for me. But the addiction metaphor AAT uses in his post is apt: I'll want more and more of that drug until I drive her away. Not a good plan.

Only by finding things that work for her and work for me do we get to a place where our FLR is viable.

We're not there yet.

As Subservire puts it,

Forget the advice of the female supremacists who espouse that the way to a successful female led marriage is to give yourself to the Domme totally with no regard to your own wishes. It simply doesn’t work that way.

Most submissive men have a sexual desire to be submissive. Unless that sexual desire – or need - is met, very few men are happy to simply cook, clean and concede for their wives or partners.

Again, it's the mutuality that is missing.

He's pretty pessimistic about this working out for him. I've read his post over and over again trying to pick out the relevant threads of the argument, and I think it comes down to four (very good, IMHO) points:

Most male submissive's submissiveness revolves around their sexuality
Most males aren't "service submissives" where the serving itself is the end
Most women are happy to have "their guy" do more around the house and dote on them in some ways
Most women aren't (and don't want to be) sexually dominant in the way most submissive men fantasize about

Regarding this list point, "P" (the dominant wife of femdomwife.blogspot.com) describes a woman's approach to a d/s relationship as very different from a man's:

a D/S relationship is often far out of the context of how you might normally think of approaching and evolving within a relationship. I think women inherently come to the relationship table with needs and perspectives which are very different from their male counter parts; namely that they want an over the top romantic version of reality, a manly man to take care of them (in all senses of the word), to be adored, cherished for all time, the list goes on and on....

Dunno. This isn't hanging together as well as I had hoped it would. But I thought subservire's comments were distressingly relevant.

More later on Work and Play.

Unexpected Chords

2008-07-18T19:50:00.000-07:00

Every once in a while, a post from someone whose life and relationship is quite unlike mind nonetheless strikes a chord. That's why FemDomWife.BlogSpot.com, by P and her submissive husband M, and why FDHouseHusband.BlogSpot.com have links from my sidebar.

And it was M who wrote about punishment in Punishment Resumed that struck and unexpected chord. I should mention that the whole conversation with my beloved in my previous post took place before I had read M's post. His relationship to punishment bears no relationship to my desires, and indeed, my beloved and I have raised two spectacular kids (OK, we're biased...) who didn't know the meaning of the word punishment until they heard it in school. There were consequences and expectations, but punitive punishment was just never something we needed to have. YMMV.

So when my beloved mentioned the word "consequences" in connection with our assessment of what happened yesterday, I was pleasantly surprised.

And late the evening, when I thought about what would motivate me to to serve her, I realized that the kind of consequences we had talked about would in fact serve some purpose - to provide that extra "kick" when things get tough.

So I do find some commonality with M's thoughts on this after all.

This is what life looks like...

2008-07-18T15:00:00.000-07:00

Much water over the dam since my last post, including a week at a family retreat center we've been going to for years, and now some time at an extended-family vacation. So I'm not going to try to maintain narrative continuity, but thought I'd write up the random thoughts that occur to me.

The one I'm craziest about is that this woman loves me to a fault, I think. This morning in bed we were chatting and I appreciated the fact that she's doing this even though it means something so much different to her than to me. She talked about how it is important to her that I be happy and that if we can find a way to do that that works for her, why not?

At another point over the last several days, she said, "I'm not making this easy for you, am I?" And she meant it in the best possible way: challenging me to do the things I said I'd do, without nagging me to do them. Nagging me would be totally contrary to the point. But the absence does does make it harder. A total absence of feedback would make it impossible. But more on that in a minute.

Yesterday was a day in which I did nothing and things fell apart. That was the impetus for our conversation this morning. I guess I needed to feel tired and depressed. At the end of our day, she tell asleep and immediately went to bed. I followed sometime later, but she was asleep - no opportunity for our nightly ritual where I kneel naked by the bed and we discuss how our arrangement is going.

That nightly ritual is the soul of what's making this work: feedback for me in a form that is not coercive and is comfortable for her. Only on this night I just fell in to bed. So it was the following morning - this morning - that we talked about how things were working.

She said that I had looked tired and needed to kick back. I said that the whole point of doing this is to do it at the hard moments, and that I felt I had failed rather totally yesterday. I wasn't overwrought about the not-checking-in part because life happens, and our arrangement needs to be flexible enough to deal with that. What I was over-wrought about (a little) was the fact that there was no overt sign from her that my slacking off made any difference to her.

We talked a little about what's important to each of us in why we do this - to me service and submission and surrender (gee, the three S'es). And to her helping me be happy. And being willing to pursue whether any of this could be interesting and useful for her. As she acknowledges that it could be, and to some extent is now. [Drat - there was something more too it, but I can't remember it exactly - I was after all 1/2 asleep]

In the end, I realized that the most effective way to deal with a day like that - in my minde, was to pick up on what Ms. Rika said in her book: losing the ability to serve her and losing her affection. I would hate that - not being able to serve her for a day, and not being able to be close to her for a day - to approach her for the little moments of affection throughout the day. Then I hesitated with something that was very fetishy but I guess I'm in the place where if I can't ask, I won't get. So I mentioned that sleeping on the floor beside her bed would be exciting for about 10 minutes, then a total hassle.

Much to my surprise, she didn't dismiss this out of hand, but net said, "Let's see how today goes."

And it has been a much better day. Mostly little things. Some weeks ago I had the opportunity to shave her armpits - what a hassle to do yourself, it was one of the most fulfilling things I've done. She was surprised, but allowed me to do so again today. And there were a handful of little things during the day. An amusing one (to me): she saw me eating something for lunch and said, "I'll have one of those" and got up to get it. DUH. I offered to get it for her. The little lightbulb went on and she said, OK.

On the other hand, earlier in the day, as I'd been making lunch, she said, "I'll have one of those" so I gave her one of me plate. That worked.

Overall it was a good day. A good day is one where I get to serve her. I like that.

A Little Reassessment

2008-07-03T10:33:00.000-07:00

If we're doing this and it's what I want, how come I'm not happier?

Let's deconstruct that statement....

Are we doing this?

Is it what I want?

Am I happy?

Are we doing this? More deconstruction are we doing this? Pretty much, sorta. The comma is important. The major parameters are in place: I've committed to picking up much more of the work around the house, and I have been. There are a tiny, countable number of things that I can do for my beloved (as opposed to for the general running of the household), which are the thins I find most satisfying.

Is the "she" part of "we" doing this? Well, she's not not doing it - that is, she's willing to put up with me doing it, and she knows it's happening. I'm trying to be very conscious of those "We could do ..." or "We should ..." household-type things, and make sure they happen. She's not making it easy, being very subtle and non-directive about these things, but I'm trying.

We've done three evening check-ins, with me kneeling beside her after she gets in to bed, this being the gating item that has to happen before I can get in to bed. We have some logistical details to work out about that, but right now that part is working well enough.

The check-ins themselves are terrific, both in the satisfaction-for-me sense, and in the working-on-getting-this-right sense. I get to thank her for doing this, in a heartfelt and true way. I get to talk about what I've done for her, and we end up sharing our reactions about how this is feeling for both of us. If we're going to figure out if this can work for us, we're going to have to do that, so the fact that we're doing it every night is really constructive.

[Aside - 15 or so years ago when we tried something similar, the high point was a weekly ritual we did assessing how we were doing. Helped make that unsucessful attempt at least in to a positive learning experience rather than a resentful dud.]

The down-side of this is that I perceive of her body language and facial expression last night and to a lesser extent the night before, as being moderately put-out by the whole exercise. Sometimes I read her spectacularly wrongly, so I guess I have to ask about it tonight. Which is the great part about having these checkins.

I also said last night how much more I prefer doing stuff for her rather than stuff for the household (though I gladly do both). But in her way, she turned it around and said "That makes me feel like an uncreative lump since I have nothing that I want you to do for me." I actually think we both have issues there that we'll have to work on.

My fantasy is that we're in the "First we try, and then we trust" phase (to steal a quote from one of our favorite movies...), and that some time she'll start requesting/expecting more. But that could just be a fantasy.

She is concerned that I not take on more than is realistic. And, having paid a couple of bills last night (supposed to be my responsibility), she expressed some disappointment at my not having done it. It was clearly an effort for her, and I didn't say the right thing (dammit!) - which would have been "I'll try to be on top of that in the future," but rather something mealy-mouthed about how I wasn't sure how those worked. Oh well, learning experience for both of us, I guess.

Is it what I want?

I think so. Or rather, nothing in the experience so far makes me think it's not. I know I was hoping that it would decrease the distance between us that has grown up in 15 years of raising kids and being civicly active and having two lives. I'm not sure it's done that, or what the prospects are that it will, but there's nothing to indicate that it won't. Certainly it has at certain moments.

Do I regret the loss of control or autonomy? ABSOLUTELY NOT. Actually, that part seems like a mindfulness exercise in letting go of petty ego and trying to focus on what's really important. (Which is what I failed at doing when I responded to her comment on the bills - more room for improvement [grin]).

Am I happy?

Sometimes. I exercised my right to ask for permission to relieve myself sexually last night, and after an intimate several moments of consideration, she said "Yes." I realized that what I cherished was that intimacy, not the act it self. Which I didn't pass up anyway, but it was the first time I contemplated what I really wanted there.

I honestly also realized that for a number of reasons I've been reading way to much of this FLR blog/discusson board stuff during the workday. I think I've pretty much gone cold-turkey on that (except for posting during my lunch hour), and that feels good. Hard. Don't know whether I'll succeed over the long term (though being on vacation for a couple of weeks starting tomorrow should help - no blog updates then either, by the way). The web reading part has many of the hallmarks of addiction, which I don't like.

Hmmm... I was feeling pretty negative when I started this post, but reflecting on all this stuff, by now I'm feeling rather more positive. I'm still concerned that this is all just a vexatious hassle for my beloved. And I'm seriously considering letting her know about this blog, frankly so that I can let her know about SheMakesTheRules.com. If she chose to read it and engage with some of the women there, at least I think it might be helpful for her. But none of that till after vacation.

Positive Reenforcement

2008-06-30T09:59:00.000-07:00

No, and not in a "Dommme-ly" "I-can-make-you-want-to-do-this" kind of way.

Only with the slowly dawning realization that every time I go to talk to my beloved about this, the conversation goes so much better than I expected. She is wonderful and loving and I'm incredibly appreciative.

As I implied in my last post, a conversation was in the offing. When nothing manifested by Sunday afternoon, I brought the subject up. We've both been incredibly busy and spent a surprising part of the day napping.

I started with "We need to find a time to talk about this stuff, and not during a walk." Which is where we've talked often in the past, but is an activity she likes, and which I don't want to 'pollute' with the idea that every time we go for a walk, we have to deal with "that..." And not right before we go to sleep, because we're too tired.

Coulda knocked me over with a feather when she said, "I've been thinking about this."

"You have???"

"I think before you come to bed, you should check in with me and tell me the things you've done for me today. That will remind me that we're doing this."

We had a long talk about my ambiguous feelings about "getting credit" for house work. And she said she understood them, and that perhaps in the future we would exclude them from the list, but for now, they should be included.

I said, "Jeez, if we're talking frankly about fantasies, can I do that naked at your bedside." She smiled indulgently and said "Yes."

We tried to line out the practicalities of things - what if she goes to bed before I'm ready (I drop what I'm doing and go up anyway, and afterwards leave the room to complete whatever's keeping me up) - what if I want to go to bed before she does (I ask if it's OK to go to bed, she either says 'Yes', or 'Wait a couple of minutes, I'm going too,' or 'Go and wait for me.') I'm sure we haven't covered everything, but we'll work it out in time.

And after watching some TV, she was tired and wanted to go straight to bed. So we did, though I scurried around doing a couple of chores before I went to the bedroom - in retrospect maybe I should have gone to the bedroom, done the whole ritual, and then done the chores. But we'll figure that stuff out.

Have I mentioned that I love rituals?

Have I mentioned that I really love rituals?

So I have great hopes for this.

On the other hand, I had great hopes for our "coming home" ritual, where I'd wait to be acknowledged by her, but that only worked out once in the last two weeks. I suggested that we really need to fine-tune that one for more situations. We agreed on the possibility of deferring conversations for up to 24 hours if the moment didn't seem right, so that's what we did with this subject.

Which is actually very liberating, because it gives me permission to bring it up again and not feel guilty about it.

I was actually pretty tired during our discussion and not feeling all obsessed and sub-ly, so it was a good moment to have the conversation.

In the event, the ritual last evening felt a little awkward, as well it might the first time through. But I appreciated her doing this all, listed to paltry things I had done yesterday for her, (though I forgot the project about getting the work-stains out of her slacks, which took a while; I'll have to get better at remembering). I also noted that this was also her opportunity for feedback to me, though she didn't have any, she didn't seem burdened by the concept.

Much to my surprise after the light turned out, I spent more than half an hour pleasuring her, at her express request and direction. Mistress Matisse has a riff somewhere on her blog about "Who's running the fuck?" - who's setting the timing and pace of intercourse. That has almost always been me in our relationship, even when I'm pleasuring her with no prospects for myself.

That definitely wasn't true last night, as she repeatedly told me to slow down. I was worried because in the past she's said that if things go on for too long, they're not fun for her, but I guess that was a long time ago...

I was concerned that we had sex after having these discussions because she felt it was "part of the package." But last nights was so "Her in charge" that I'm beginning to wonder if there's an alternate explanation - that she's really turned on by the whole thing. Seems too much to hope for, but a pleasant thought anyway.

So we'll see how things evolve with our new ritual, and our talk today about the "arriving home" ritual.

Life is good.

Back in the Saddle Again?

2008-06-28T13:26:00.000-07:00

So today we were snuggling in bed and my beloved reached up and fingered the chain I wear as a commitment to not masturbating without her permission. I asked her if it meant anything to her, since we seem to have left all the FLR stuff behind.

She said she'd feel so betrayed if I cheated on her that way, because she'd feel like a fool - she believes that I will hold to this agreement because I said so. I was releived to hear that, since, after our last conversation, I was ready to belive that none of this made any difference at all to her.

I don't remember how the conversation went, but she (I think) said we'd have to do something about my list of obligations around the house, since she can't remember them. I was surprised because I didn't think we had an arrangement any more.

She commented that it had been a bad moment there, and not to read to much in to it.

I told her that the comment that kills me the most is when she's doing something that I am "supposed" to do, and I either thank her for it or try to help, and she says, "Oh, that's OK." That's the killer for me. If it's OK, then why the fuck am I trying to do it?

We talked about this some, and realized that my apologizing for not doing things doesn't work for her - it's an issue that I apologize too much, a character flaw on my part. I agreed, and said that I've been trying for "I'd like to do that" as a response to the observation that she's doing something I feel I should do. Or "I was intending to do that." We also identified three possible reactions of hers to that, each of which communicates better:

1) I want to do this, so I'm doing it

2) Good, then do it

3) I don't think so, or you would have done it. Go do something else.

This last is the "punishment" option - the not being able to serve her as the incentive to stay on top of things. I think we have more work to do around this - for example, I expect I'll mess up and apologize, since it is an ingrained habit. And while we never punished our kids, there were consequences for undesirable behavior. We haven't come up with any consequences for my behavior, so we may just not go that route, other than inability to serve.

We also realized that if we're going to do this, we need to talk about it a lot in the early stages, as we set our expectations and learn what works and what doesn't. I also commented that it becomes real when it is inconvenient - Her loving response is to say "Oh, you were tired, so I did it." While my response is to say, "I want you to remind me to do it, or tell me to do it even though I am tired." Her relaxing and my working is one of my little fantasies, and the small handful of times that that's happened have been very fulfilling.

So she did tell me to wash her feet which I gladly did. And later to shave her legs, which I gladly also did. At which point she indicated she wanted oral sex, which I also gladly performed - her with the comment "You could do that for hours" (which would please me just fine). No indication of sex for me, which is also fine. But I actually do worry that this is all about sex for her.

No question but that sex is involved, but "all about" would be skewing the thing a bit. We'll see how that evolves.

I mentioned that the idea is to help her feel entitled, which, just as apologizinging is a charcacter flaw for me, not feeling entitled is a character flaw for her - she's bad at asking for things. So in this way, we both work on ourselves.

Later in the day at a reception, I was happy to offer to get her wine and hors d'oeuvres. IT was a little thing, but satisfying.

We'll see where things go from here - perhaps a converastion during tomorrow's long car ride.
...
Here it is after tomorrow, so "perhaps not."

The total insanity of our lives has settled down a little bit for a couple of days. I will motivate a conversation about all this before the end of today - I need to know that the conversation we had a couple of days ago means something. And we'll see where that leads.

... About The Wife Whose Husband Though He Was A Chicken?

2008-06-21T13:15:00.000-07:00

"Have you heard the one about the woman whose husband thought he was a chicken? She took him to a therapist who said he had a fool-proof way of curing the husband. The wife looked thoughtful for a moment and declined the offer. She said she didn't want to lose the eggs."

That was the story my beloved told me last saturday. We were in the middle of a typically stressful morning, this one involving a dying car. She broke down weeping and said that it was just impossible to do this, as it colored every conversation we had, even those about the practicalities of dealing with a dead car.

Which was ironic since FLR was the last thing from my mind at that moment.

But I said the only gentlemanly thing to say, which was, "Well, then forget about it." "But you'll be miserable, she said." I said, "We'll talk about it in a week or a month when it's a better moment."

And my little dream died.

So I wasn't a total jerk about it, and I said that I intended to keep doing the more around-the-house things that I should have been doing all along, but laundry became an "us" task instead of as much of a "me " task as she would let it be (which was never 100%). Ditto for bill paying and animal care and kitchen care. So we were pretty much back to status quo ante, with me picking up some of the slack that (frankly) had resulted from my having had a job with a long commute (but that was a long time ago).

You said what?

2008-06-16T07:13:00.000-07:00

Father's day was busy, not with particularly celebratory events. The commemoration was low-key but satisfying around our house. But at the end of the evening, after cleaning up from the 25-person pot-luck event, I plopped on the couch beside my beloved and said, "I give up, I'm not doing a thing." And she said, "Is that an ultimatum or a request?"

What? You said what? I didn't even know how to take the question.

In the end, I replied, "A request." Seemed like the lesser of the two evils.

"Granted," she said.

Needless to say, I read beside her on the couch for a while, and then got up and put the laundry out to dry and finished the dishes.

I'm still trying to figure out what to make of that.

Give the Dog a Bone

2008-06-14T11:41:00.000-07:00

I'd say our FLR is on hiatus. There are several reasons for this. Last Sunday we had this terrific discussion. I thought we had addressed a lot of stuff: the extent to which my beloved does and does not want anything to do with this, the need I have for some kind of acknowledgment that "something's happening here (even if) what it is ain't exactly clear..." and some little things we could do that might work for both of us.

It was a great talk. I'll probably post it because one of the things that has been helpful to me is to read real-life interactions between husbands and wives working this stuff out.

And then nothing happened. Nothing.

And I realized that I can do this with no feed-back for only so long.

So the things I've said I'm doing, I am certainly doing. It's a modest list, but it's keeping me busy, and I know that paying the bills is something she's really happy not to be doing. But the mind set is different (and perhaps mindset is everything). I'm doing this because I said I'd do it, not because I get a huge submissive buzz from it. Without feedback from her, without that vaunted "acknowledgment from a position of dominance," it's all in my head. And I don't get energy back from "it's all in my head."

About those things, there's nothing inherently submissive or FLR about them. A guy who's not a jerk would be doing as much as he can around the house. A guy who's not a jerk would be doing the laundry. A guy who's not a jerk would be paying the bills. A guy who's not a jerk would make sure that the kitchen is clean. So why am I trying to get "credit", consideration, a buzz, some kind of acknowledgment from her for doing all these day-to-day things. Doesn't seem very justifiable to me.

I guess that leaves the vitamins and the light, as tiny little symbols of the fact that perhaps something else is going on. But Tom Allen's comment was spot on: It may be that she really doesn't think about this stuff at all, and she's happier that way.

Tiny tiny little things - there's this gulf between the practical and the submissive in my head. "Scratch my back" - that was a pleasant (but practical) surprise. "Do you want to shave my legs?" to which I did thank her profusely when we were done.

I am tired of dissembling, so I won't not say that.

Wonder if she'll ask me in private what I want for father's day. Because if she does, I'll answer, one of these. Because I'm tired of dissembling. Not like I'd expect her to do anything about it, but as far as I'm concerned, now that the subject is no longer taboo, she's going to end up hearing what's in my head. [Not sure about all that, just trying it as a possible theory]

But I'm not going to push this noodle either. At least not right now. Maybe just doing these things will get us somewhere. Or maybe it won't, in which case something else will have to happen.

A couple of caveats: I think I'm kind of depressed - something I discover when I notice that I don't have any desire to do anything. Even sex. Even writing this blog entry, which I've been thinking about for a couple of days has taken this long to do.

Usually cooking is therapy for me; I intend to do more of that this afternoon.

Also cleaning up my desk, which makes me depressed just to look at it.

Another caveat: I think I'm almost disfunctionally obsessed with this whole thing. It's hard not to be since I've been fantasizing about it for the last 40 years. But it can get in the way of life and work. I'm trying to figure out how to make it not do that.

OK, tiny little deliberate steps to the future.

Encouraging Signs

2008-06-11T07:01:00.000-07:00

I'm sorry to have left things on such a bleak note, since, aside from being incredibily busy, the less dramatic parts of our WLM seem to be falling in to place. I have a need for acknowledgment that is at the root of this dynamic for me, and I know that. That's still something of an issue. But taking a step back, yesterday was an interesting day.

We were IM'ing and considering getting together for lunch. Her exact words:

"Wanna come home for lunch?"
"Let me put this another way..."

To which I responded, of course,

"As you wish"

As I've said, the idea of her using these little verbal formulas is not attractive to her; I don't know how she feels about me using them (guess I should ask; my guess is that she doesn't care), but I think they're good disciplines.

The evening was quite different from what we had expected - I had work to do (which is unusual), and she did three different cooking projects (that's called "fun" around our house...) At the end of the evening, she said "I'm tried, I'm going to bed." At which point two things happened:

I got up from work to make sure the bedroom was prepared for her (which, trivially, means turning on her light and setting our her toiletry supplies)

And she left a large number of dishes un-done in the kitchen (though she did a lot of tidying up and running a load of dishes). Dishes have always been my responsibility, so this isn't so different from what would have normally happened, except for the conversation about it later.

One her way upstairs, she thanked me - I inferred that was for preparing the bedroom, to which I replied, of course, "My pleasure" (which it really was; have I mentioned how pathetic it is that in some senses the most pleasant moment of my day is doing that stuff for her?).

And when I came to bed, she apologized for leaving all the dishes. To which I could honestly say, "Thank you for letting me do them." The idea that she would feel comfortable enough to do what she wanted to do (cooking projects) and not worry about the aftermath when she got tired, is exactly the luxury I'm hoping to provide her. Not "I'm such a bitch, I get to be a thoughtless slob" but "I have the luxury of doing what I want, and a loving husband who delights in giving me that luxury." At least that's the direction I think we're going.

Finally, this morning we were trying to schedule a complicated weekend in the future, and she had a plan, which I messed up by having creating another outside commitment. She just said, "You make the calls and arrange that weekend. It's your problem." She alluded to this afterwards in a way that made me think that it was a conscious choice/experiment to see if she could unload a task that has been annoying her. That was thrilling - of course now I just have to figure out how to resolve the gordian knot of the weekend, but I'll figure something.

All of this results from a long talk we had on Sunday, which seemed to have few practical effects on Monday, but which may be bearing longer term fruit. I'll try to remember to post about that soon.

Another Whine, I'm Afraid

2008-06-05T05:53:00.000-07:00

Frankly, I'd rather whine on the blog than risk messing up this tender little shoot of FLR that I'm attempting to cultivate. I say "I'm attempting" because at moments like this it seems pretty clear that this is all in my head. So if it's not, we need to communicate better.

I was thrilled when my beloved got home last night. I missed her just the way I used to when we were new at this, and that was bittersweet. I can grasp at straws that as she was walking in to the house, arms loaded with stuff, she said "There's a bag and a backpack in the car." Not an order, not even a request, but I could take it that way and did, happily. But by the time I got back for a second trip for the other stuff, her arms were loaded with junk for her second trip. So much for expectations. I did get to help though.

Somewhere in the process while I was getting the computer unpacked and the dinner made, she unpacked her bag in the bedroom, so it was my unpleasant surprise to find that when I finally got upstairs. So much for expectations.

This morning's routine was knocked off-kilter by her commitment to make sandwiches and drinks for an affair. Her commitment, I did it since she had been out and mentioned that she'd been stressing about it. There were some pleasant moments last night as I was figuring out how to make 10 gallons of drink and she was reading a magazine, but it was slender consolation for the suitcase thing.

By the time I got the sandwiches done this morning (I would have made them last night but she suggested they'd be fresher if made this morning, and I've finally learned not to disagree on points like that), she had made the coffee (which maybe was our "gateway service", so though nice, that hurt. So much for expectations.

And I head the clothes washer going and casually asked our daughter if she'd started a load. As she said she hadn't, I know my beloved has. I swear, there wasn't even enough clothes to make up a load, so I'm frustrated. I'm NOT going to get in to this passive aggressive if-there's-one-piece-of-clothing-then-do-a-load thing. So much for expectations.

Frankly, in the context of an FLR that was "working", I don't think any of this would be an issue. I expect we're still going to be a team, and there will be times when things work best when she picks up what wouldn't otherwise get done until later. But right now, I need (yes, I need) some kind of acknowledgment of what she's doing. Even something like "Here's your coffee, I figured you couldn't get to it" communicates the expectation that I make the coffee. Rather than "Here, I'm a little out of practice." I suppose there might have been a snappy rejoinder to that which acknowledged an expectation, but I'm not good at snappy rejoinders.

I've never been comfortable with submissive male bloggers' posts where they parse their wives' statements - "She said please" or "She didn't order me, she asked me" types of things. But now I think I get where they're coming from. It's about the expectations, not the words. It's about the acknowledgment of what's going on. It's about communication and what means what.

Glad to have a blog where I can vent. We'll talk about our relationship this weekend, and by then this little rant will have cooled a lot, which will be a good thing.

But the happy homecoming, though happy, has been a little more difficult for me than I expected.

Jamie

The Bicycle

2008-06-02T16:44:00.001-07:00

A friend of ours fell off her bicycle the other day and injured herself badly enough to end up in the hospital. When I mentioned this to my beloved (who's away), she recalled the number of people we know who have done themselves damage on bicycles and wondered if riding was such a good idea.

I love riding my bicycle.

Was she implictly asking me to give up my bicycle? Would I?

As for the first, I don't think I'll ever know. She certainly didn't say as much.

Would I? Not the way things stand right now. I'm enjoying the forums over at www.SheMakesTheRules.com quite a bit, and they've included a thread on "What makes this real for you" - asked by a woman, lots of replies from men.

Until I get some sense that this is real for her - some sense that she's willing to expect me to give up something and she'll recognize it not just in that moment, but in some way on an on-going basis, giving up something that important would just make me crazy: "Is this all in my own head only?" "Am I just making myself miserable?" etc.

Because if I am, and this is "light recreation" for her, then I'll need to engage in a whole different way. Perhaps that's all it will ever be for her. But I think it's too early to tell where we are yet.

Sure will be nice to have her home. Only two days, but who's counting...

Learning about service submission

2008-05-30T10:20:00.000-07:00

This last week seems to have been about doing things. I've spent a couple of nights on the bills (I said it was complicated), and gardening, and laundry, all of which have not been part of our normal routine for me to do, so sort of qualify as "service." Actually, I've been feeling bad about the bills part and the laundry part because there's no reason why I haven't been doing those for years except that I could get away with it.

There's a rationalization for everything, in this case that my beloved works at home so it's easier for her to keep after that stuff, but as I've started to do these things, I'm not sure I buy that explanation.

What I have found out is that service submission is much more of a "mind set" than it is a specific set of tasks. There are the normal routines (like these household things), there are things that I do for her - precious few and I treasure them: taking care of her cell phone, wallet, and bag, all of which she often does herself. The only thing I really get to do regularly is the vitamin thing and turning on her bedside light - pretty minor.

And there's being attentive to what she wants. She doesn't make this easy. This morning in the wee hours when she was leaving for a one-week trip, it was "I was wondering whether the tape was upstairs." Not "Get me the tape", not "Could you please get me the tape", not "I was wondering if you would get me the tape." I'm getting better at translating comments like "I was wondering if the tape was upstairs" into things to jump on and do right away. It is somewhat satisfying, but at a fundamental level, not so much, because it forces me to wonder if this is still all in my head - if this is an arrangement of one person: me.

Oh, and a fourth category: things I have no idea if she even notices, like the fact that her wallet always has money in it, and the cars always have gas in them. Or the fact that when she gets up to go in the wee hours, I get up too, make the coffee, carry the bags out to the car etc.

We still haven't figured out what Ms. Rika's "accepting from a position of dominance" actually works out to be in real life.

We have another talk in our future, when she gets back. It *won't* be "Hi honey, you're home. Let's talk about submission." But within a day or two, or I think we'll drift off to a place that doesn't work so well. I am happy to do the service submission things. But I need some acknowledgment of what is happening here.

Pretty much anything she asks if I can do, I respond with "As you wish." But as I mentioned above, she seldom asks. And that's still all in my head.

What I need is...

What I need is...

What surprises me is that I don't know exactly what I need. Some acknowledgment from her that this is happening. Unprompted by me. In a way that I perceive of as meaning something to her.

This may be impossible. This may never happen. I might be able to grow to be OK with that.

There are subtle changes happening around the fact that my time is hers to dispose of, that I'm trying to be around to just make life easier for her. There are random moments when it works: when I'm working on something I'd rather not be doing and she's reading a magazine. But they are few and unacknowledged.

She is also demands perfection in a way that I don't know that I can ever achieve. If I've left the laundry in the washer, to be air dried later, I'm just as likely to come home and find it laid out and done by her. On the one hand, there are only so many minutes in the morning. ON the other, I suppose I could get up early and get there before her. But that's our most intimate time, and I won't give it up, truth be told. If I come home and go upstairs before cleaning the kitchen counter, I'm likely to come down and find her doing it. If I leave a case of oil in the car to remind me to change the oil, I'm likely to find it in entryway.

I can aspire to be better at these things, but I don't know how much better I can actually do.

And now she's away for a week, so the rhythm of things will change. I suggested (I think only once) that she might think about a "honey-do" list for while she's away, but she didn't find time to make one up. I tried not to resent that, even though she mentioned it. She mentioned minor garden maintenance, and suggested she might think of something while she's on the road - I'll be bitterly disappointed if she doesn't, but I don't expect her to.

I think I have myself dialed back to the point that I'm not bugging her. I'm trying as hard as I can. The extent to which I raised this at all yesterday (for example) was to note, as we were in bed, that back-rubs are always on offer. Her response: "I'll have to figure out what my equivalent of a back-rub is."

And I think if we proceed quietly and slowly at this pace, something may happen. Certainly it has in the sex department (more on that in another post). Maybe it will in the "we communicate about this and I feel validated as the the submissive" department as well.

Another blog bites the dust

2008-05-28T09:49:00.000-07:00

RJ's blog "Under her control" is gone. Which is a pity, because in his last post, "Appreciation", he said some things I really liked:

I appreciate my wife. She has time and time again listened and accepted me for who I am... She has always listens to me tries to keep an open mind about things. I think she, at least on some level, grasps my need to serve her... My wife and I have talked a lot lately. We have covered a gambit of topics and have discussed the workings of our WLM in detail. I love the feeling of finally being able to tell her what I feel, no matter how embarrassing it might be.

All statements that I can subscribe to.

I can only wish them well. I know from experience that this is complicated.

Some Notes on Some Comments

2008-05-23T10:38:00.000-07:00

Both 's' and Ms. Rika have been generous with their comments. I meant to respond, but like I said, I've been busy.

Regarding Small Satisfying Surprises, 's' commented

While you're at it, you might try putting the toothpaste on her toothbrush for her.

Actually, I did. And my beloved, who hates having stuff done for her, I think, replied, "No, I'll pick which toothpaste to use, so I'll do it myself." I'm trying to finesse this by reducing the toothpaste brands down to one in the bathroom (I was the person motivating the second brand - I can give that up - sheesh - is this too much information or what!) So maybe someday we can revisit this. But it won't be for a long time.

Things to look forward to.

And the pitiful part of it is, doing that stuff for her, putting out her vitamin, putting away her cell phone, etc - these are the high points of my day. Why? Because there's a part of me that wants to serve her that's been skulking around underground for about 40 years, and it's incredible that it can see the sunshine. The last couple of times out we got whacked pretty hard, with nights of crying on both of our parts and (mild) psychiatric drugs and therapy and it was so not fun. All of which probably improved the success potential of the current venture, but who knows by how much...

's' also commented on I'm Not Very Good At This, pointing out that when she does something that I thought I was supposed to do, the only appropriate answer is "Thank you." Or perhaps no comment at all - If I thanked her for plugging in her cell phone, I'm pretty sure she'd take it as nagging. For more general household stuff like the laundry, I might get away with it.

But it breaks my heart to see her do this. Because it's either "I'm not thinking about this arrangement, it doesn't exist for me" (which is what it probably is), or it's the passive-aggressive approach that Ms. Rika mentions in her comment on the same post. That comment is so so right on the mark that I want to figure out some way to share it with my beloved. (Which sort of makes me want to share the blog with her, but fortunately, my conscious mind forcefully reminds me what a bad idea that would be.)

When it comes to doing the kitchen counter (one of those things that just needs to be done occasionally), it would make my day (literally) if she'd just point that out rather than doing it. I realize that her just doing it is likely to make me better at anticipating her needs and wishes because it hurts so much to see her do it. But I do need the interaction too.

I think the danger is that we arrange this so we never have to interact about it - she never has to acknowledge what it is we're doing, so she can remain in denial because face it, it's uncomfortable for her. I've tried to present it in the most comfortable possible way - I what can I do to make your life easier - and it's still uncomfortable for her. Either she's going to work through that discomfort (and I'm willing to help in any way I can short of not doing this, which I think we've established I have to do), or I'm going to end up in either the "stealth submission mode" (which I'm pretty sure I don't have the intensity of imagination to keep up indefinitely), or we're going to stop and I'll go slowly nuts again.

Wow, I wasn't expecting to go there when I started writing. Maybe things will improve.

Rough Patches

2008-05-23T08:39:00.000-07:00

It's been a very busy couple of days, totally unrelated to FLR. But the fund-raiser I was helping to organize is over and I've had time to start decompressing a little.

A wonderful moment after we all got home from our events last night: she poured herself a glass of water and emptied the pitcher. In mid-conversation she just handed me the pitcher. My heart skipped a beat and I just went and filled it while we were talking. Most satisfying moment of my day; I seem to get about one of those a day. I don't want to read too much in to this, but I really don't think it's the kind of thing she would have done in the past.

A couple of days ago I realized that I had so much to do to make that fund-raiser work that I was just keeping up with the barest minimum of what I fell I need to do to be make my beloved's life easier, and in a tired moment shared that "I'm not feeling very good about myself at this moment." I was referring to my fulfilling my commitments in our arrangement, but as we shall see, communication is a tricky thing.

Last night, when it was all over, lying in bed, she asked, "How are you feeling; yesterday you said you weren't feeling very good about yourself." So I shared that I felt I wasn't keeping up my commitments and acknowledged that she had been quite correct about outside involvements perhaps making this impractical. She replied that civic commitment is something we value in our family, so it's part of what we do. All well and good.

Then I asked the fatal, "And how's this working for you?" question. As best I can recall, and I will attempt to quote this accurately so as not to put my interpretation on it, she said (though not in this order, I think), "Sometimes I just wish we could be normal" and "I get tired of being asked if I'd like things" and "I know you're thinking about this a lot, but I wish just an hour could go by without your bringing it up". I apologized for that and suggested that we come up with a way for her to mention that in the moment, but we both acknowledged that it can be hard to perceive and act on in the moment. And later in the conversation, I asked if this was making her life at all more convenient, and she said, "I was pretty tired of paying the bills, so I guess that's nice." No mention of the laundry, which I know she's kind of tired of doing, and which I've been doing.

Apropos of Ms. Rika's comment about using chores to be passive-aggressive, when I walked out of the bedroom, all of the laundry that I had laid out to dry had been put away, something I was intending to do after I got through the fundraiser.

I'll rant about some of her reactions here since I don't want to rant to her. But the "letting an hour go by" question was so unfair, because I have been compulsive about not bringing this up more than once or twice a day in the lightest possible terms. In all fairness, if this is how it feels to her, then I have to acknowledge that reality; I'll suspect that it comes from my changed attitude and my increased attention to what she's asking for, suggesting, and me trying to get out of her way more than I customarily do - in sort the change in attitude that I crave as part of this arrangement. And that feels to her like "asking" all the time, since it's different.

But if all this comes down to is that I pay the bills from now on, and nothing else, then the whole thing is a failure and we've gotten nowhere - I get to go back to feeling frustrated, unrequited and incomplete, and she gets to go on living in the illusion that she's relating to me, not to my "game face."

I put that all out there first because it was the nadir of where things got to. I had a crappy night sleep "realizing" that this was all for naught, and finding my desire for her (which runs high while we're doing this) to have been reduced to the merest casual level.

In the morning we snuggled a little, as we have been doing more of since we started this, mainly because I'm crazy about her, which was better. I was trying to get better about what was said, and assuming that it was because she was tired last night. But in the end, I said that I didn't want to make her miserable (isn't that counter to the whole idea - we chuckled), but I don't want to be miserable either, and can we find a way to make this work for both of us? She agreed (warmly) that we probably could.

15 minutes later she gave me an embrace in the kitchen and told me she loved me, which I appreciate, but (not content to leave the unsaid unsaid, as I have for the last 25 years), I asked if she loved all of me. Because it's really nice to be all here as opposed to skulking around underground. She agreed. She pointed out that I need a haircut (which she usually provides), and perhaps (she suggested), I could shave her legs - another thing I love to do.

So I think we have a place to work from.

A Romp In the Hay

2008-05-23T08:31:00.001-07:00

Catching up a bit, Tuesday night (much to my pleasant surprise) my beloved was feeling like she wanted some sexual satisfaction. As often happens, I brought her to orgasm with my hand. Some time ago we established that I would only get to have PIV intercourse with her if it would enhance her pleasure. The only issue was the signals - she had plenty of ways of telling me to proceed, but none to say "We're done." I suggested "Thank you" (my least preferred, but I didn't tell her that), or "That was fun" (more preferred), or my favorite, which would have been "I'm done" or "That's all for this evening". In the event, she always chose "Thank you" and I always reply with a heartfelt "My pleasure, it's fun."

In the event, in Tuesday she replied with "That was wonderful." I was thrilled and thanked her very warmly. We snuggled in a way we haven't since before we were newlyweds, and in the end I thanked her again profusely. It was a warm and wonderful moment.

The next morning she commented that it feels like it hasn't felt since we were young lovers, which is a pretty nice thing for some 50-somethings to be able to say. I was thrilled.

When we're doing this and getting it right, she is so beautiful to me. I note this because I don't want to forget it: we were playing frisbee with one of our kids and I got to throw to her. And every time I did, I got to look at her, and my heart skiped a beat - she is so beautiful to me and cares about me so much. I'm grateful and in love, which is not a bad way to be after 25 years...

I'm not very good at this

2008-05-19T15:08:00.000-07:00

Lest I forget

This morning she got the crumbs off the counter because I didn't get there first

She started to get the trash down to the curb before I started to help with that because I didn't get there first

She IM'ed me with a reminder about the phone-call chore I was supposed to do today, but I hadn't gotten to yet. The only right answer for that one would have been "Yup, it's done."

Not good, but lest I appear totally hopeless, the laundry is coming along well and she mentioned transferring over the bill paying responsibilities to me this evening (something we knew we would have to do together - it has lots of ins and outs).

So in the end, things I did this evening that I wouldn't otherwise have done:

Brought the trash stuff back up from the curb

Balanced the check book

Put money in her wallet - she mentioned she was out

Turned on her bedside light

Put her vitamins close at hand for her when brushing her teeth

Which overall doesn't sound like a lot, but I think it's sustainable and hopefully I can grow from here.

And all this is incredibly boring, but isn't life, in the chop-wood-carry-water kind of way.

This is harder than it looks.

And I love it. I just hope to all get-out that she does. I hope to check in with her again on Wednesday.

Small Satisfying Surprises

2008-05-17T14:18:00.000-07:00

We were out listening to Jazz Friday night and there were chairs but no tables. I rather quickly ended up holding her cappuccino cup for her. That was satisfying - and I'm pretty sure it was intentional.

I had intended to ask her how it was going on Sunday night, but she surprised me by asking me Saturday morning. I was sort of non-plussed and not ready for the discussion, but I allowed as how it was working for me. More importantly, I said, "Is this not annoying you and does it have some positive aspects." She thought for a second and said, "Well, the house is looking pretty good." So I guess that qualifies as success.

Later in the day, something wonderful (if tiny) happened. We were talking about who-knows-what, and the subject of Vitamins came up. She recalled that she never remembers to take her vitamins, and suggested, "You could put that out on my toothbrush in the evenings." That was pretty satisfying. At least I remembered last night. What was most satisfying is that in the context of a completely non-relationship non-kink non-sex related discussion, she realized that this dynamic could come in to play. Very heartening.

I also mentioned that I had been trying to be very attentive to her "suggestions" and making sure they got done. Given my beloved's character, I think (and I told her this) that saying that may have been a mistake because she's likely to become hyper-critical of herself for suggesting things knowing that I'll actually do them. I'm hoping she'll forget the self-criticism part and must expect things to happen.

She did make an off-hand suggestion about the detail mowing around the yard, which became my first priority Saturday. She also ended up with some help gardening from me after the rest of the mowing, which I hope she found satisfying. I enjoyed it only in as much as it was what she wanted.

This is all very very mundane stuff, but I guess is the stuff of which real life is made, so that makes it satisfying.

I'm hoping I have the attention and fortitude to keep doing these things. I have faith that these little things will grow. And I'm contemplating how this is changing the dynamic of our relationship, mainly in ways that I find satisfying - I hope my beloved does as well.

Finally, I'm realizing that I'm not very good at some of this mundane stuff - getting the laundry done in the midst of getting everything else done as well. Suddenly about half of fd's experiences in Her Househusband's Life are beginning to feel very relevant. Unfortunately, it's the housework part, but all in good time.

Settling In

2008-05-16T09:59:00.000-07:00

I'm finding the differences in living in an acknowledged FLR to be interesting, even if not dramatic. My favorite difference so far is my desire to do things for her, which results in listening very carefully and making it a priority to follow up. This is kind of difficult with my beloved, who's response to any issue is not to comment on it, but to just do something about it.

But as she was on her way out the door last night, she noticed a lot of mail and papers stacking up and said, "The mail's a little out of control here," as she picked some of it up and dealt with it. Fortunately, she couldn't deal with all of it, and by the time she got make, I'd made the paper disappear. I think she was surprised; it was an off-hand comment, but the kind that I'm trying to listen very carefully to.

I offered a backrub last night (casually) but she said, "I don't want to do that every night, it wouldn't be special any more." I did say, "It doesn't have to be special, you know." A message I'll try to reiterate tonight.

Aside from that, her agenda sets my evening tasks, and I'm OK with that. I refer to my list of things and make sure that they're taken care of. Occasionally, she'll get to one before me, and I have to just let go of that. Often I can come back to what ever it was and finish it up.

I found this New York Times article on two spiritual teachers who have decided never to be separated to be weirdly relevant in one or two ways, mostly about ego and how relationships that acknowledge power and control issues can help investigate it.

We'll see what the weekend brings. Overall, I'd like the opportunity to do more for her, but life also has its way of intervening.

I'm in the process of trying to reschedule a business trip - in all honesty, partly because I don't want to have just started this and then have to abandon it for two weeks. But the unexpected benefit may be that she can come with me for a week of that. That would be fun.

Off to a slow start

2008-05-15T10:14:00.000-07:00

Obviously, life has not totally changed with our new regime; the change is more in my attitude and somewhat in hers. My beloved is a "do-er", so the thought of sitting around while I do stuff around the house isn't going to happen. I'm just hoping she'll find herself able to do what she wants, rather than what she feels needs to be to done.

So on day one of this arrangement, I don't think she told, asked, or otherwise intimated that there was anything I could or should do. The question came up as to whether we were both or only one of us going to this community meeting. I allowed as how I had plenty to keep me busy, so she went. And called 20 minutes later saying I should come. I might have tried to demur, but it was quite satisfying not to have to think about it.

I did manage to get some "chores" done, but they aren't particularly removed what what I do anyway, though again, there was some satisfaction from the changed expectations around the thing.

At the end of a long evening (she's working on a project), in the dark, in bed, I did mention that backrubs were always on offer (one of the items on our list). I had taken the opportunity to unearth our old massage book and briefly review it while doing another item on our "I want to get this project done" list. She said she thought she was too tired to appreciate it, and I said she didn't have to be awake for it. So she got a backrub in the dark. Which was very fun.

Much to my surprise, she rolled on to her back and indicated that some more directed stimulation was in order and before long, one thing led to another (as they say) and she had what looked like a lovely climax. Somewhat more to my surprise, she indicated that she was interested in PIV intercourse, so I got "relief" as well, which was welcome since it had been two weeks for me (and four days for her).

She did allow as how this was *not* a consequence of the backrub, which I pretty well knew. We snuggled. It was intimate and lovely.

This morning while im'ing, she mentioned that she'd put some plants in the beds I'd prepared over the weekend, and noted how easy it was with nice beds. I ventured to thank her for letting me prepare them, but didn't get any response, which was fine (beats a negative response...)

So I think we're off to a slow but satisfying start. My list of things looks kinda pathetic to me, but I suppose until I knock them all off, there's no point adding more.

I'll think about putting up an edited version of the list per a request in the comments, but there's really nothing innovative on it, I'm afraid.

And Now Comes the Hard Part

2008-05-14T09:44:00.000-07:00

Waiting is a struggle for me. In the words of one of our favorite movie characters, "I hate to wait." So it was only 48 hours of waiting, but they were a tough 48 hours. I kept my struggle from my beloved, however, because I really didn't want to push her on this. Hence the venting on the blog.

Last night, once again after the business of the evening was over, she said "Why don't you go print out that spreadsheet." These were items along the lines suggested by Ms. Rika - things I could do that would make her life easier.

We ended up with 17 items that I can do, ranging from the quick-and-easy (Make sure her cell phone is plugged in at night) to the projects-that-need-to-be-scheduled (pay the bills). I presented the list with a heading as follows:

This sheet is things that I can think of that need to be done around the house that I could do. Some of these things I think I should be able to enlist the kids on, like the dishes, but in the end it's still my responsibility to get done. This also doesn't mean you can't do any of these things that you want to whenever you want to. *WANT TO* is the key phrase, not "feel like you have to because it's not getting done."

Obviously, this list is longer than can be done. I think we need to work together on how that works, if that's OK with you.

In the end, she asked me, "how do we handle this?" I looked at the list and couldn't think of a good reason why I couldn't get started on it. It won't all be done in a day, but there's no reason why the "quick and easy" ones can't be done every day, and why I can't get a start on the big ones (laundry and bills). So that's what I've committed to do.

I'm thrilled and scared. Time to put the activities where the fantasies have always been.

Just for the record, the list was entirely stuff I can do that makes her life easier. If that works out for her, at some point we'll have a talk about "treats" - she'll want to know what they are for me rather than having to guess... or I'll want her to know, but I would expect that to be a month or more away.

We didn't talk explicitly about casual "requests" or decision making - we covered that on Sunday and she read my notes on them and approved them.

So there was no big ceremony, no big symbolic thing. There was just me saying "So, we're doing this, right?" and her response, "Right." I think she's waiting to see what actually happens as well. I did mention that I'm probably not going to be 100% good at this initially, and that her feedback would be welcome. Also that I'd like to check in once or twice a week to see how this is going from her point of view. Aside from that, it should be "set it and forget it" for her.

So far the difference has been ... not much. Partly this is the "How would life be different if we had been doing this" question. Partly it's that not much has come up that needs to be done. And partly it's her waiting to see how this works out practically.

I think she was tired last night; I'm very insecure about all this and perceived her manner as "put upon" rather than intrigued, but we snuggled and talked a very little about this in the morning, and I expressed my gratitude. She seemed OK with that, maybe even good.

I owe Ms. Rika a big debt of thanks, and a book review. Her book and advice got us to the top of the hill and gave us the shove we needed. Now it's our responsibility to steer the sled....

Woooooshhh..... off we go!

So Slowly

2008-05-12T18:02:00.000-07:00

It's my blog, I get to bitch.

This is going so slowly

I'm not sure I can stand it. I want her to look at the list of things to do. I want this to be happening. I want to get beyond having had a discussion about what might happen. I want to do this and work out the details with her.

I get to want.

Phew. Feels much better having vented since there's nobody I can tell.

Seriously, though, I've had a headache on-and-off all day, and a little stress twitch. This part is difficult.

And now I get to be patient and quiet and let this little flower grow on its own.

Everything has changed, and nothing has changed

2008-05-12T06:14:00.000-07:00

She said, "How would we have such a discussion?"

I thought for a minute and said, "I really don't want you to be anyone other than who you are. But I think there area ideas about communications in this book that we should talk about."

I reviewed the salient points of the book and we talked for an hour. It was great.

The following is really an aide-de-memoir for me, so you might not find it interesting. You might want to skip to the bottom with the impassioned exchange of vows (sort of).

Key points I'm trying to remember:

My beloved's comment about outside organizations was far more practical than I had realized. It wasn't about "What if I wanted you to get rid of your outside commitments," it was "How can you claim to be at my disposal when you have outside commitments. It's all very good for you to work on the garden all afternoon, but if you had phone calls to make, how would that have worked?"

That kind of stumped me. We talked around it but didn't come to a conclusion. I suggested two possibilities, one much better than the other: She's a list person, so I could add my outside commitments to her "to do list" and she could prioritize - not preferable since it's more work for her. Or I coudl tell her what I need to do, ask her for time to do them, with enough time ahead that she could say "No" now, and still have there be time to ask another time.

She asked, "So am I not supposed to say 'Thank you' any more? Hows that going to look to the kids? It doesn't seem like 'the woman in the book' says thank you to her husband." I said that while *I* love that kind of verbal discipline for myself, and view it as a kind of a mindfulness practice, I didn't think it made any sense for her because it's not who she is. Sure, I love it when the dynamic is, "The work you did on the garden makes me happy" and I reply, "Thank you for the opportunity to do it." But given who she is, I'm just as happy with "Thanks for working on the garden," "My pleasure."

Similarly, telling me to do stuff versus asking, partly for how it looks in front of others, and partly because of who she is. I don't think it's ever going to be natural for her to say "Get me a glass of water" - shes much more a "Could you get me a glass of water please" type person. I did tell her that my fantasy was to be able to respond with "As you wish" - a movie quote that says to us, "I love you."

Which led her to ask about what happens in public? Her question: suppose I want you to do something and there's some reason it's not a good idea or you can't. HOw do we have that conversation in public. She was thinking (she said), that we need to turn this on and off depending on the circumstances. Even as she was saying it, she realized that this wasn't necessarily so.

I introduced the idea (not explicitly) of the "vote and a half" - that it's my responsibility to give her the best counsel and judgment on a situation, and then it's her choice as to what happens. It's not like I turn into a brainless twit, just that once she has the information, she gets to decide. Concrete example: the car needs work. I take it to the shop, get the estimate, come up with a fix/don't fix decision, and make a recommendation. Her choices (after as much back-and-forth as she needs to feel comfortable, is to say "OK, go with your plan", or "I don't care, I hate the damn car, we're getting a new one." End of discussion.

I did say that I could think of a phrase we could use in pubic to say, "I'll do this, but there's a reason why I don't think it's what I think I should do" rather than disagree with her in public (we disagree, we seldom - though not never - argue), which is "Would this make you happy?" Indicating that I'm doing it just because she says so, not because I think it's a good idea. I really told her that I didn't explect to need to use it, though.

We talked over the idea of "routines" and decided that they probably would work for us. But, she noted, "stupid things like laying our my nightgown do nothing for me." "Dang," I said. "I saw you struggling with your nightgown and figured it would be convenient." "Nope," she said, "If it has kink value for you, then I don't care", to which I responded, "The only value it has for me is if it's convenient for you." Which just goes to show how important communication really is.

She said, "Sheesh, the only routine things I can think of for you to do are boring, like sorting the credit card receipts." I went "Perfect! It's not the thing, it's knowing that you need the thing done." I'm not sure she believed me but it sounds like she's willing see if I mean it.

We talked a lot about my making a list and her sorting it in to the "A" (That would be helpful), "B" (Doesn't do anything for her but possible gift for me) and "C" (Wouldn't be caught dead doing that) categories. I realize that we need another cateogry, "D", which is "Doesn't do anything for me *AND* doesn't make her life easier, so forget it." The nightgown goes in that category.) So that's my job today over lunch.

I commented that Ms. Rika's suggestion for what to do when this isn't working is key: "Don't touch my stuff, don't do any of this, it's not working and you made a commitment you're not fulfilling" is far more effective than any "rewards" system or punishment system. It means that this is about us and our relationship, not my trying to get rewards. The punishment piece I think stems from subs wanting to say "Are we still doing this, do you still care?" In the spirit of communications, I suggested that I just ask, "Are we still doing this, do you still care?" but that in the context of all the other communications - "Thank you for letting me serve you" and most important, a check in that says "Is this working? Have I been disappointing? Is this really making your life easier?" would be what I would need. In this regard, I think I/we differ a little from the approach Ms. Rika advocates, since if it's about communications, I need to be able communicate and ask. As I've mentioned other places, asking is really important to me. It's what's led me to be able to ask for this.

This is probably the most important yet most subtle and difficult part. Many years ago, when we were taking another run at this, after a long conversation not entirely different from this one, but far less informed by experience, and not informed by Ms. Rika's excelent advice, she asked, "How would today have been different if we had been doing this?" It's a question I've thought about a lot since then. And the answer is encapsulated in Ms. Rika's "Accepted from a position of dominance" suggestion. But she asked, "What does that mean for me (herself)?" I said I thought for us it was my ability to ask, "Are we doing this, is this working." OBviously not every five minutes to pester, but to get the sense of psychic satisfaction - to get that itch scratched - that is the point of the whole thing.

[As an aside to all this, I mentioned that I realized that that's what asking to take off the necklace for sexual satisfaction is all about. It's not like I want her to say "Yes" or "No", but that I want to have the conversation. Obviously, there have to be some "No"s, or asking is pointless. But it's more about the conversation than the specific answer.]

She pointed out that we need a way to ratchet this up and down if my previous history of being more or less interested in this over time proves to be consistent. I meant to say (but the converastion wandered) that I didn't think this would be so, just as how doing the necklace/sexual satisfacton thing has been very consistent. Doing something at a sustainable level eliminates these huge swings in interest.

So how did we leave it?

I'm going to make up the list.
She's going to sort it in to A's, B's, C's, (and D's)
Until we end up with a list of routines, her "requests" are what I do.

The impassioned vows part:

I am doing this not because all women are superior or because you're superior to me, but because I want to. I want to serve you, to make your life easier. I will work as hard as I can to get this right. I love you for who you are, and don't want you to change.

She said, "I'm doing this because I love you and I want you to be happy."

At least that's all I remember....

So this morning, I mentioned that I have a committee meeting this evening and she was a little exasperated. I'm really going to have to figure out how to get that right.

Tantalizing and frustrating

2008-05-11T19:28:00.001-07:00

I asked my beloved this afternoon whether we were going to have a chance to have a conversation about Ms. Rika's book today. She said, "Depending on how the rest of the day schedules out, but certainly not before dinner." I said, "I'm glad I asked. If we don't manage it today, I'd like to do it soon." And indeed, if we don't manage it today, I am going to try to schedule it with her for as soon as we can this week.

So one of the things I hate most in this world is gardening. But my beloved and I are clearly poking around service submission, without saying so in quite so many words. Although more words got said today.

She said that some gardening chores needed to be done, and I had a question to ask about them, so I asked her. As we were walking in, she said, "So, are you doing what you want to do, or rather, what you don't like doing?" - sort of joking as if wonder the right way to put it. I said, "If it's what you want done, then it's what I want to do."

A couple of minutes later, she said, "I think picking the book you did was the best possible choice. I really like the emphasis on 'fundamental relationship' and on communications. Of all the books out there, I can't imagine a better approach." I was thrilled. Then she said, "If we really do this, you're not going to have much time. We've structured our lives so that we do a lot of ourside activities: committees, boards, etc. Are you going to have time to do that? How's that going to work?" I started to answer, and she said, "I just want you to think about it for when we have this discussion."

So am I on cloud nine or what? I did do four more hours of gardening after that, and was happy, so as not to say aroused, the whole time.

But now it's late, there's kid homework to be done, and I somehow doubt our conversation will happen today.

This patience business is very hard. But I'm managing.

I don't know how long I can do the "service submission" thing without an arrangement in place - without the "Acceptance from a position of dominance," but I'm sure as heck trying.

Very Small Pleasures

2008-05-09T05:37:00.001-07:00

My beloved got home from her event last night, laptop bag in hand. After the customary chit-chat, she was on the couch reading a magazine, and I realized that her bag was still in the hall. I just picked it up and was going to get her computer set up at the base station and upack the bag. As I was walking by with it, she said "Could you get that connected up for me?"

s's comment that one shouldn't necessarily read too much in these things is a good caution, but after 25 years together, I'm pretty sure she wouldn't have said that a month ago. But I could be wrong.

I was thrilled. Poking around in the bag, I found three other things that needed to be put away and just went about doing that. Honestly, I was aroused the whole time, which I found a little surprising and embarassing, but quite satisfying as well. I did have to ask one question about where she wanted an item. I really try not to do that, because it screams out "Look at me, I'm doing this stuff and you have to tell me the details". But having been told once, I now know where she prefers it.

I've really been trying to find things that will just make her life easier; this morning she was talking about all the things that need to get done this weekend. I saw one that I could do and just casually said,

"I could do that while I'm doing this other thing. How many?"

"Five...," she said

"And what do I say when they ask what kind, and stuff?"

"I don't know, so just decide."

Done.

This could be very very satisfying.

There will be a conversation this weekend. I kind of wonder if she's "trying some of this out" before such a conversation, and I will very much have Ms. Rika's comment in mind about really having this be about what will work for her.

I perhaps depart from her counsel when I think there does need to be some conversation about why we're doing this and what I need from it; I don't think I'm a perfect enough "service submissive" (in her terms) to let the wind blow where it may on that. Maybe I haven't fully internalized this "D/s paradox contradiction" thing, but if it wasn't for what I need, we wouldn't be doing any of this. My beloved would be happier if she could just snap her fingers and have this go away. As, perhaps, would I.

But many many years of wrestling with it, in therapy and out, in deep spiritual practice and out, has convinced me that that's not going to happen - the only way out of this one is through. So we are doing this "for" me, and she's embarking on this because she loves me and wants me to be happy - something that only emerged explicitly in this context, when we talked about it. So I suspect she'll ask, and I'd better have an answer that's as close to the truth as I can determine.

And that answer is not, "I'll be happy if you do this to me" or "I'll be happy if I have to do that for you." That answer has a lot to do with the relationship between us, her expectations of me, my ability to fulfill those expectations, her acknowledgement of those expectations, and some way that those expectations are communicated back to me. At least thats as close as I can figure out right now.

But I am going to tread really softly on that, more softly than I would have without Ms. Rika's admonition. And always uppermost:

It's about me working for her
It's not about her being anyone other than who she is

Maybe along with "Softly, softly..." it's "In very small increments."

Right now, in standing routines, it's just

Coffee
Laying out her nightgown
Finding and plugging in her cell phone
Making sure the light is on on her side of the bed

Everything else is whatever I can figure out in the moment.

Perhaps in our conversation, we'll come up with some other things to add to this list.

Softly... Softly...

2008-05-08T11:21:00.000-07:00

I don't remember the reference, but it's to how to proceed, and in this case, it's apt.

Ms. Rika's advice, though hard to hear, is by-and-large, on the mark.

My beloved arrived home last night, and in the hurly burly of life with kids, not a word by her or me about books or relationships. I did see the book appear on my side of the nightstand. And I enjoyed helping her out with her luggage.

We did a little snuggling in bed, very much in the way things go at night, when she decides how much intimacy she wants - in this case we were both (I think) too tired. So it was just pleasant. She's remarked that sometimes when she can't sleep, she wonders, "Will a little sex help me relax and sleep" and if so, she gets some. I love it, but as I said, I think last night, lassitude won out.

This morning in the hurly burly of getting kids (and husband) out the door she said, "Rub my shoulder right here; it hurts, I think I did something to it." So I did while all sorts of other conversations swirled around. Nothing unusual about that in our house, and I'd have asked her to do the same if the situation was reversed. Except that I swear she would have said "Could you please ..." in the past.

I would never never ask her for that kind of syntactic distinction; as I said, it drives her nuts (at least I think it does). But my little heart did go pitter-pat when she said it, and it was very fun.

We just had lunch, and at the end of a long pleasant w
alk about town, I said, "Can we set a time to talk about 'this, book and all?'" I said something about needing to know that it was going to happen, by which I meant the conversation, but she interpreted as moving ahead on some version of submission. I only realized this when I interpreted her response, which was "If it wasn't going to happen, I'd have told you by now." "Oh, I thought, you meant some arrangement." So I said, "I just need to know the conversation is going to happen some time, so if we can set a time, that would set my mind at ease." In the end, we didn't set a time, but I think the conversation is going to happen (though not tonight - she has one of her few "fun" night-out commitments (at least it's fun most of the time...))

The suspense is killing me

2008-05-07T09:54:00.000-07:00

Spoke briefly to my beloved last night though she's still out of town. In the midst of all the quotidian conversation, she say "I read your book." I can't say as how she sounded two enthusiastic about it.

I said, "I'm thinking we should just talk about it section by section to see what seems relevant." She agreed that that seemed like a good idea. I also mentioned that I think I'm more excited about having the conversation than about the subject of the book itself - it's like not having to drag this enormous weight around anymore.

For the past three days, I've been on tenterhooks trying to figure out what it is I want. I know I've blogged about this in the past, but it is surprisingly difficult to figure out.

Starting from what's in Ms. Rika's book:

- I do want to serve her. From our conversation some time ago, each of those little service things says "I love you" and that's the message I want to send, over and over again during the day. Who'da thunk that after more than 20 years of married life, it would still be important, but it is to me.

- I need her to acknowledge that service. This is one of the key insights from Ms. Rika's book that I had never been able to put in so succinct a form.

So far, there's nothing "power exchange-y" or "wife-led marriage-y" about that arrangment. So what I'm trying to do is define for us, for me, what is the additional element that makes this work, that gives this zing, that makes it scratch that submissive itch. I don't have Ms. Rika's book with me now, so I can't comb through it looking for her take on that, but it strikes me as a key point. Here's what I think:

Her acknowledgment of that service has to go beyond "Gee, thanks for doing that, honey." To be candid, Ms. Rika does point that out that the woman can acknowledge service without thanking explicitly, thus reinforcing the "power exchange" portion of the relationship. For example, "The kitchen looks clean" rather than "Thanks for doing the dishes", which elicits from the man, "Thanks for letting me do that" (I'd add, "I love you" just to make it explicit) rather than "Your welcome."

I love that kind of discipline in speech, even though it's hard; as I said, I'm still working on "May I .... " rather than "Would you like me to..." but I am working on it. But I think it would drive my beloved crazy (maybe I'm wrong).

I have a hard time getting away from desiring that there be a lack of choice on my part in doing these things - not a coercion based on sexual denial or rewards, but an acknowledgment that I *have* to do these things based on the agreement we have made. So what is that (right now, hypothetical) agreement?

A long long time ago, I had some chores to do (in a D/s context, when we were taking another run at this). I defined it as there being a "barrier to intimacy" until those chores were done. I think that's close to the mark, but doesn't work if the context of the service is "all the time." But there's something in that.

I honestly don't know what the answer is here, and while part of me wants to say "Let it emerge from the discussion", another part says "She's going to ask, 'what do you need, what works for you?', since if it was up to her, we wouldn't be doing this at all." And then I need an answer at least to start a discussion.

Here are two possibilities, neither perfect:

1) Whenever I do something that I wouldn't otherwise have done, I have the opportunity to find my beloved and thank her for the opportunity to serve. Scratches my itch, doesn't require initiative from her (though a nice response would be nice), and if I don't overdo it, shouldn't be overly annoying.

2) A nightly check in. Assuming she wouldn't come to dread this, it would foster communication, which is key for me. And it would give me an opportunity to assess how I was doing service-wise, and her an opportunity to provide feedback.

My final dread is that she'll say, "I've been doing all this crap for years, and now you want to do it and get credit for it?" This is a little unrealistic, since we share a lot of work now - our basic egalitarian approach to life is one of the barriers for her in thinking about this whole arrangement. So this doesn't apply to dishes (which I do anyway), but to things she's been doing that she doesn't particularly like, like laundry and some aspects of our home business.

My fantasies have a habit of getting away from me, but I can think of one that addresses this issue. That would be for me to have to ask explicitly for "down time" (perhaps not more than once an hour or twice an evening, or once an evening). If she says "No" for whatever reason, I'm supposed to be on task working for her.

Enough food for thought. I think I've broken my "What do you want" log jam enough to have a conversation, which I dearly hope will happen tonight.

Inch by Inch, Step by Step, Nearer and Nearer...

2008-05-05T06:37:00.000-07:00

So as my beloved is packing for her business trip this week, she asked, "Are you going to make me a cup of coffee tomorrow morning so I can leave at 5:30?" To which I replied, "I'd love to..." I was, in fact, thrilled.

As you might have gathered from the "tidbits" below, I've already started doing some of the things that I think would be a part of service oriented submission, and we have talked about some of them. Significantly though, we haven't discussed the acknowledgment of why I'm doing this and why she's accepting it, a thing that Ms. Rika points out is vital to do.

A little later, with some trepidation, I asked, "So, are you going to bring that book with you?" To which she replied, "I've already started to read it" and proceeded to finish it.

I'm *really* looking forward to this discussion when she gets home.

Tidbits

2008-05-04T14:56:00.000-07:00

Enough with the long posts - I keep the stuff rolling around in my head until it turns in to a huge manifesto - not useful. So, a new resolve to post when the though occurs, and these tidbits:

My beloved was out gardening, her favorite thing. I thought I might score the treat of washing her feet when she came in for a shower, but she came in an "crashed" instead. I read on the couch beside her until I realized I wanted to go for a run. I told her I'd love to take a shower with her when I got back. When I got back I feared she had taken a shower without me, which would certainly have been her prerogative, but would have implicitly said she had denied me my treat. But she hadn't; she'd returned to gardening and now we're off to shower.

Some days ago we were busy doing stuff in the evenings when one of our kids turned on a movie. Rather than continuing to work (as is her wont), she said, "You know, I don't have to work all the time. I'm going to watch the movie." I said "Keep that thought!" But it is indicative of her attitude towards always being useful doing stuff, which I fear will make this "service submission" idea difficult.

I'm really trying to phrase things as "Can I do X" rather than "Would you like me to do X". I believe that words are important and phrasing it as what I would like to do makes it clear for whom we're doing this, and removes the onus from her of having to, even implicitly, ask me to do something.

I'm also trying to thank her for letting me do stuff. I just got to wash her back, her feet, and shave her legs. Do I feel lucky or what? "Thanks" and "I love you" were my two responses.

I'm getting better at taking the "Could you...." or "If you remember, you could ..." suggestions as mandates. Knowing my beloved as I do, she's never going to be the "Get me a cup of tea now" type person. So it's important to listen to what she wants in the way that she is comfortable saying it.

Stuck at the brink.

2008-05-04T13:19:00.000-07:00

So here it is Sunday again - how time flies. Why has nothing happened? Well, a little has - I finished Uniquely Rika, and passed it along to my beloved. She suggested that summary of each chapter might be a bit much since we're going to talk about it anyway. So I just commented that the first half seemed to have much more immediate relevance to us than the second half, and passed the book along to her side of the bed. She mentioned that she had read the introduction. I said that while I wasn't at a place where I wanted to follow each of Ms. Rika's prescriptions as if they were canon, I thought there was a great deal in there to talk about.

One thing led to another - her parents came to visit unexpectedly this weekend, and we haven't had a chance to talk at all.

Also, we did have rather mind-blowing sex on Wednesday, which always lowers my motivation to talk about this stuff. While I'm not going to turn this in to a sex blog, I only get release about 1/3 or 1/2 of the time when we are intimate, as was the case last weekend. And I only can stand not getting release for two or three days after that, until I ask her if I may satisfy myself - to which she pretty much always say yes, somewhat to my disappointment. (When I thanked her for this arrangement some weeks ago and told her I loved her, her reply was "I don't seem to love you so much that I'll say 'No', which is what you want." I reassured her that whatever her choice was would be perfect, and I'm really working towards that.)

This whole dynamic is not 100% successful, but it works pretty well for us. So, having satisfied myself in the morning, I was a little surprised when she initiated intimacy in the evening, and a little more so when she asked me for PIV intercourse. But like I said, it was excellently draining and intimate.

That all notwithstanding, there's been a deeper question bothering me: A long time ago when my beloved and I were taking another run at this same issue, she asked (at the end of a long car ride), "What would be different today if you had been my slave?" (the terms we were using at the time). I was at a loss.

Ms. Rika points out that what is important for the submissive is the intent of dominance from which the dominant accepts service. So just "doing stuff" is not enough for there to be submission, nor would be my beloved's allowing me to "do stuff" for here be sufficient. She needs to accept the stuff that I do from a position of dominance. Now, if I understood Ms. Rika correctly, this isn't a quid-pro-quo, but the establishment of the relationship: I'm doing these things for you because I want to/must; you acknowledge that I'm doing these things for you because we've established that this is the way we want our relationship to work: I do stuff for you, you accept and acknowledge the stuff that I do.

So back when my beloved asked me, "What would have been different today...", I think I now realize that the answer is the understanding and her intent. I do go out of my way every day to make her coffee, plug in her cell phone, lay our her nightgown, and turn on her bedside light - the only things we've identified that work for her.

I do need her to acknowledge every day that I do these things for her. A month or two ago, after a discussion about our arrangement with the necklace and my sexual satisfaction, I suggested that I have the opportunity to mention to her each day how much this arrangement means to me, the "I'm happiest when she controls my sexual release," and that she allow me to thank her for that. Somehow, we never got the words right, but I do believe that what's most important to me about this is the interaction with her, an the acknowledgment that there are things I do for her, and that she's "in charge" in some way.

As I wrote at the end of Standing at the Brink, a ritual that allows me to know this without being burdensome for her would be perfect. I don't know if this "arriving home" one is it, but I hope there is something we can work out.

What I need to be able to tell her is that I like sitting at her feet when we watch a movie or are sitting around. And I need to find out which of these things are not obtrusive or oppressive for her.

So where are we now? Stuck at the brink. Waiting for her to read "Uniquely Rika" (which I'll ask her to do again today), and for us to have a conversation about it, and to find what works for us.

My fear: that she'll say "I hate this stuff and I just can't do it."

My other fear: That I'm looking for something that I'll never find, and that this is just a vain attempt to scratch an itch which can't be scratched this way.

But I don't think there's anyway to confront or resolve those fears without just trying this, with the awareness of those things.

Standing at the Brink

2008-04-27T06:25:00.000-07:00

So here it is Sunday.

A week ago Saturday, I told my beloved that the "Uniquely Rika" book should be arriving any day. It did arrive, but just before I had to leave on a one-week trip, so it's been sitting on my desk unopened for the last week. The suspense has been killing me!

I do remember her first comment, which was, "You've been pretty obsessed by this stuff recently." To which I could only answer, "Yes." In fact, I think I've been more obsessed by it than she knows, and certainly more than I would like.

Perhaps the most important thing she said was that she's feeling in some way pressured by this - let me be clear - because she wants me to be happy, not because I'm running around saying "Would you like me to do this", "look, I did that that", "Oh my, I forgot to do that, what a bad boy I am..."

I'm a lot more interested in sex than she is. So when I know I can't have sex on my own, then in the mornings, I tend to get pretty cuddly. She interprets this as a request for sex, which, based on our arrangement, it isn't. It's an invitation, which she is totally welcome or encouraged to ignore, explicitly reject (which she never has), or accept. But she feels she's "supposed" to be more interested than she is.

We talked about this for a long time and I really really tried to explain how satisfying it was for me to be able to offer, or request, and for her to have no pressure as to whether she wanted to accept or not. This has worked well when we do have sex (which is mostly oral or manual) in that if she doesn't feel like intercourse, she just doesn't offer it. She knows I love that, and, though a little surprised by it, has seemed to find a way to work with that that works for her. I asked if she could give me some signal that she's satisfied and will not be wanting more. I suggested if she said "I'm done" or "None for you today" or "Thank you", I'd know what to expect and how to "wind down" and not continue thinking we were going some place we weren't. She settled on "Thank you" (not to surprising, knowing who she is...)

If we can get to the same place on "offers" in the morning, then perhaps she might feel less pressured. She likes to make other people happy, so the idea that the focus of this exercise might be on just making her happy is a part of the growth process for her - not because I want her to change, but because this is a long-running issue for her that (I believe) she agrees would make her happier if she dealt with.

Sometimes, like maybe a year or more ago, I remember having a conversation with here where all this stuff had faded away. It does that sometimes - sometimes I feel like I "go sane." But I've never been able to correlate that with anything else in my life, so I'm very skeptical of the "This will just go away" argument.

What I did say was that by exploring the way we're exploring, and talking, I'm looking for a happy medium - a way to being submissive or service-oriented that allows us to get to a place where I can be happy, without making her unhappy - without impinging so much on her life that she finds it unacceptable. I expect this will mean submission or service at times when it seems pointless to me, or even tedious (though in a weird sort of way, that's kind of attractive), and at other times controlling my needs to something kinkier than she has any desire for. But hopefully finding a happy medium where I don't have to have this interior life that she either knows nothing about or can ignore.

I think we're together on the fact that my asking for what I need is important. And we've identified those hand-ful of things that are important to her - things that say "I love you." I don't think she really believes that there are "service-oriented" things in here that could be of any use to her, just ones that she hopes won't be a nuisance, but that just my supposition.

We also talked about what the kids know - both are sexually-aware teens. We figure they've gone over the bookshelves pretty carefully, where there is a handful of Anne Rice (the Beauty series), some Robert Mapplethorpe, and The Story of O. But it falls in to that grey area of what one really does or doesn't want to know about the private life of those in the rest of one's family. Certainly nothing's happening between my beloved and I that they're going to see that's going to ring any bells.

What with yard work and the like, my beloved and I have had the chance to take a couple of showers together - something we don't do often, but which has given me the opportunity to wash her feet and help get the callouses off of them. I enjoy that a lot, and (echoing the realization I read on someone else's blog - by now I don't remember which), I ask her for what I want, which is to wash her feet and told her that I'd join her in the show at any time. My new goal is to listen for the shower and ask if I can join her and do her feet; doesn't happen often because she works and home and can shower at odd hours when I'm not around. I haven't had a chance to ask yet, so we'll see how that works out.

Some time ago, my beloved broke a bone in her foot and as a result was wearing sandals a lot. Though she's never been one to paint her nails, she suggested she might ask our daughter, the one with fashion sense, to paint her toenails. Feeling surprised and dismayed, I blurted out "Is that because you thought I'd enjoy it too much?" - not suave, but she took it in the way it was intended, which was I think, her fishing for whether there was interest. So I did for a little while, but got too wrapped up in her asking me to re-do them when they needed it, so it didn't work out in the end.

I won't make that mistake again - I intend to ask her if I can do her toenails, and if so, it will me my responsibility to keep them looking good without her asking. At least that's my theory.

So I've been gone for the last week, "Uniquely Rika" has been sitting in the USPS box on my desk, since I was traveling with one of our children, and there was no way I was either going to read or hide the book in a hotel room.

Having gotten back, now I get to read it and then, as we discussed, precis each chapter and share it with my beloved. From that I hope we'll make a plan, or more likely, start and exploration towards creating a lifestyle that works for us.

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Oh, but there I was in a hotel room finally having a chance to sleep in, and I did think about rituals and what they're for. I need something that says "We're doing this - it's not all just in my head." The necklace goes a long way towards doing that, since it's something I'm wearing all the time. But sometimes the reality creeps in that she really wouldn't care if I ignored it entirely and just satisfied myself. I should ask her to check this, but that's my impression.

Some weeks ago when we had a good conversation about this arrangement with the necklace, I suggested that I have the opportunity once a day to thank her for this arrangement and tell her how much happier I am when she controls my sexual satisfaction. All she'd have to do is listen and acknowledge - essentially it was giving me permission to talk about this with her once a day. That didn't work out well - I don't know if I didn't find the right wording or what, but it felt stilted and silly and we only did it once or twice.

But in the spirit of "Mistress Laura's Boy"'s entry on "Everyday Rules That Keep Me Focused on My Mistress", I did try to think about why reminding me was important, and I think it is that affirmation of the fact that "We are doing this." I don't imagine she's going to expect me to do a lot of stuff, that's not her style, but I was wondering if we could create an "arriving home" ritual. Some men write about kneeling naked in the entryway etc, things I might like in fantasy, but are never going to happen in my life.

But, as she's usually working in the home office when I get home, I wondered if I might have a required routine - drop all the junk that seems to need to come in to the house with me, approach her wherever she is, assume some unobtrusive position standing near her,and just wait for her to acknowledge me. I mean, I'm coming home, so I'm going to interrupt her anyway with the business of the day, so it might as well be at a moment she chooses, and I get the satisfaction of waiting, and the little ritual of it, and she gets to be bothered less. Something I may suggest soon.

Where are we going?

2008-04-17T17:45:00.000-07:00

So I ordered a copy of Uniquely Rika. This is a little more complicated than it seems. One of the hard and fast rules my beloved and I agreed upon some time ago was that I wouldn't spend any money on "this stuff" without telling her. She does the bills, and neither of us wanted her to discover a "What's that?" charge on one of the credit cards.

So to order Ms. Rika's book from Lulu, I needed to use a credit card, and to do that, I needed to ask her if that was OK. She wasn't enthused, but was very supportive in suggesting that I try to figure out why it's so hard for me to talk about this stuff. She also said she realized, from our past approaches to dealing with my fascination with dominant women, how common this is. All in all, very reassuring. She really is terrific, which makes me wonder what my fear is about.

So now that the book is coming tomorrow, where do I want to go with that? From reading Ms. Rika's website, I know that there is terminology in there that will turn my beloved right off - anything about D/s lifestyles and dommes. If she reads past that - and I'm assuming that the book is a superset of what's on the website - then I'm pretty sure there are ideas she will like.

Do I

Read the book and just try to implement it
Just ask her to read it, without my reading it and see if she chooses to go anywhere with it?
Read the book, do an introductory commentary on the chapters, and ask my beloved to read it?
Read it and then ask her to read it and then discuss it?

I actually know the answer to these questions: #1 and #2 are just my fantasies and would be a really bad idea. Between #3 and #4, I think I'll just ask her which she would prefer. I've read enough of what Ms. Rika has written that I know it's all about communication. In fact I pitched this as a book with insight about communications between a couple with interests like this, so I hope that proves out.

What's scarier is that this starts moving all this into the realm of real possibility. I think that was what made/makes the whole necklace thing so big: it is a lever for conversation - I have to ask, and that is really big. And it has helped us change the dynamic of our sex life.

I suppose I should talk about that latter. We've had, I would say, three really good conversations about my desire to submit over the last three years. (Wow, sounds kinda pathetic, but I guess it beats none...) Somewhere between the first and the second, we established that sex would be for her pleasure. This was, I think, actually helpful for her to become comfortable with her sexual desires and feelings she might have had as to whether she was disappointing me in the frequency of her desire - another reason why my having to ask for release is important.

She has become more comfortable initiating sex when she wants it, declining my advances when she doesn't want them, and (most fun for me), deciding herself whether penetration is something that would enhance this sexual episode for her or not. She tells me when (and if) she wants me to enter her. I don't think she really believes that I enjoy sex without penetration (or physical climax), but I do. Somehow the "all about her-ness" of it I find really really exciting. I'd say I go without maybe 20% of the time when we have sex. I'd like more that to be more often, and penetration to be more of a special event, but I've figured out that it's all about her, stupid, so I'm happy to have her call the shots.

Prefiguring some of Ms. Rika's book (from the website), I did mention that I thought a lovely birthday present would be to do without for a couple of weeks, followed by an opportunity for intercourse, but pitched that as a present for me. In general, the whole talking about this and asking for what I want is really big. (Have I mentioned that before? Only three or four times in this post alone...)

In one of our recent good conversations, I mentioned that I enjoy doing things for her - it's a physical way of saying "I love you" and "I'm feeling connected to you." Right now, it's a pathetically small number of things - coffee in the morning, laying out her nightgown so it's easy to put on, finding her cell phone and plugging it in in the evenings (Thank you, Ms. Rika) but sometimes she gets to it first, which makes me sad. When I asked her about what else might go on that list, she suggested making sure the light is on at her side of the bed if I go to bed first (which doesn't come up much, but I do remember when it does). To which I've added cleaning the cat box.

Somewhere back in previous posts, I mentioned a guy who decided he was going to do an FLR right away, and posted some ridiculous to-do lists for himself - day 1, day 2, etc. I'm not going there, especially because it's my nature to jump in to things too fast. But adding things one at a time, at a pace that I think I can sustain will be fun.

So Ms. Rika's book arrives and then what? I guess I read it. I caveat the parts that I think will put her off, and then I ask her to read it. And then we talk about it. Since I'm going to be away for four days, maybe we put it on the shelf until I get back, so we can read, talk, and implement, all of which can't happen if I'm away.

Actually, one of the reasons I like writing the blog is because, upon reflection like this, I find things are going much better than I might have thought.

If anyone reads this marathon post, I'll be amazed, especially since it's pretty low on pictures. But it does me good to write it I think. There's much more to say; feels as if the dam has burst by starting the writing, but gotta go.